Once again, my lungs are giving me hell, so yet again I’m working at home today.  Hacking away at Moodle like always, doing random tech support, and forgetting to update my online timesheet (which is ironic, since I’m the one who created the online timesheet that everyone in our office uses anyway).

Summer’s upon us, which means that the Central Valley, which Dixon is smack-dab in the near middle of, is getting hot.  Spring was unusually warm around here, and it looks like summer’s going to be just as bad, if not worse.

Since Dixon’s a farm town, deep in the heart of agricultural country, summer also means that our population grows about 30% (according to a community analysis report I read when I joined the Library Commission a few years ago); this, of course, is because of the number of migrant farm workers that come into the area to work.  We have two camps near Dixon for the workers; one is actually a recovered naval base, which still has some of the old buildings intact, and a radio tower.  School is out for the summer, but the library’s summer outreach program to the migrant workers camp continues.

Which reminds me: when I went to the drug store this morning to pick up some drugs, I saw an ambulance parked in front of the library.  When I got home I called the library’s administrative assistant and asked what had happened.  She told me that one of the library volunteers had gotten injured somehow at the migrant camp yesterday when she was doing some outreach work, and her wound, which was apparently really bad, had gotten badly infected.  She was taken to the hospital for treatment.

Not to sound racist or classist, but I know that the migrant camps simply can’t be perfect havens of outstanding public health.  Not all of the migrants are illegal immigrants, but I assume that many are; and with the difficulty that illegal immigrants have, too many diseases, including some very dangerous communicable diseases, are left untreated until the condition worsens to the point where emergency services are required.  This is just dangerous.  Regardless of your position on illegal immigration, I think we can all agree that these communities should not be allowed to become public health risks to the community at large; any legislation which denies preventative and maintenance health care to illegal immigrants is just cutting off our nose to spite our face.

Of course, when I heard about the library assistant, being me, I naturally assumed it was necrotizing fasciitis; it frequently starts out when an injury becomes infected, it strikes fast, and it strikes hard.  There haven’t been any cases of that reported around here, but it’s not inconceivable that the staph strain responsible was carried here by workers from other areas, and that it could have infected someone.  Still, it’s really unlikely.

I’m still going to be obsessively cleaning any tiny scrape or cut I get for awhile, though.  Old habits and hypochondria die hard.

There’s also the fact that when I work at home, I usually pop in some old horror movies to play in the background while I code away.  I had a nightmare last night (don’t remember what it was, just that I screamed myself awake), and that set me on edge, so I’m seeing ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties and germs where there are none.

So no, nothing much happening around here today.  How’s it going where you are?