Queer Readers' Comments (meaning odd to me) and Insightful Readers' Rejoinders (meaning those who, boringly, agree with me)--An Occasional Feature on "Bob's blog"

Some of you, my dear and highly-valued Readers, are kind enough, and most generous with your time, to send me messages from All Around the Globe with sometimes Queer, and Always Insightful, Rejoinders and Remonstrations to things Bob blogs about, even bloviates about, on "Bob's blog."


Now by "Queer" I don't mean what I take to be the Sexual Orientation of my dear Reader who made the comment but, rather, the manner in which the Substance of my Reader's Rather Unique Take on what was said in "Bob's blog" struck Bob like a lightning bolt from Outer Space.


Example 1 of a Queer Reaction


To take a recent example, a deeply-intuitive Dear Reader wrote in this thought, as summarized in the recent blog post on Susie's Potentially Life-Threatening 

Clostridium difficicile 

Infection:


    One of my readers thought I was being flip by referring to C diff. as a "life-threatening illness,"  because that terminology frightened this reader. Susie just confirmed, in a telephone interview, that Dr. Scroth herself said that C diff. kills if not treated properly. 


Now those who share that, to me, Queer reaction, might find Queer the following Comment left by another Reader, who recognizes the threat posed by a C diff. infection:



Anonymous said...



For those who want to know about how life threatening Clostridium difficile can really be, the value of our good bacteria (microbiologists call them good flora), and the somewhat novel and bizarre experimental practice of fecal transplants, here is a link to a July 12, 2010 New York Times/Science Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/science/13micro.html

    Quoting from the New York Times article:

"In 2008, Dr. Khoruts, a gastroenterologist at the University of Minnesota, took on a patient suffering from a vicious gut infection of Clostridium difficile. She was crippled by constant diarrhea, which had left her in a wheelchair wearing diapers. Dr. Khoruts treated her with an assortment of antibiotics, but nothing could stop the bacteria. His patient was wasting away, losing 60 pounds over the course of eight months. “She was just dwindling down the drain, and she probably would have died,” Dr. Khoruts said.

Dr. Khoruts decided his patient needed a transplant. But he didn’t give her a piece of someone else’s intestines, or a stomach, or any other organ. Instead, he gave her some of her husband’s bacteria.

Dr. Khoruts mixed a small sample of her husband’s stool with saline solution and delivered it into her colon. Writing in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology last month, Dr. Khoruts and his colleagues reported that her diarrhea vanished in a day. Her Clostridium difficile infection disappeared as well and has not returned since."

So you see, Dear Readers, there is some reason to be concerned when someone, like Susie, contracts the "vicious gut infection of Clostridium difficile." (quoting from the Times article)  And, Queer as it seems, C diff. is an infection which can threaten life itself, even in a lady as strongly constituted as Susie, my C diff-infected wife.


Example 2 of a Queer Reaction


The same reader disliked my saying in the title to the earlier blog entry about Susie's Clostridium difficile infection,  "Being in a hospital is not for sissies."  I was surprised by that reaction, although I welcome and value all reactions to my work, certainly that one.


Another reader, however, questioned the Sense of Humor of the (to me) Queerly-Reacting Reader, and sent me an email today which said:

Bob the Bard-

Tell your readers to lighten up!

Reading Bob's Blog is not for sissies!!

[Anonymous, to protect his or her identity] :>)) 

[Editor's note: the original email contained the cute smiley face after the reader's name, which has been deleted to protect the guilty.]

Conclusion and Suggestions for Future Comments about Bob's blog posts

I mean no disrespect to the views of any of our Dear Readers of Bob's blog.  Like everything these days, I look for the good, the funny, and the humorous in myself, my life, and everyone God has given me the good fortune to meet and interact with.

Please leave comments for me either at the end of a particular blog post, or email me, in strictest confidence, at my email address:

      a12250@hotmail.com

I promise never to name you, or identify you in any way, if I decide to use what you have told me.  But I would like to be able to keep Bob's blog lively, relevant, and, most of all, edgy.  Apart from my own imagination, I must rely on yours to fill the gaps in my own life and imagination.  Thank you.