I read a news story about a guy who died from rabies after receiving a kidney transplant. Although nobody was aware when he died, the donor of the kidney had contracted rabies after being scratched by a skunk several weeks before he died and his organs were harvested.

I got curious about how the donor got scratched by the skunk, but instead only found this article from August, which informed me that the U.S. has a rabies outbreak, and has more deaths from rabies in the last year than several previous years…

Not sure if people were already talking about this outbreak, and I just missed it? It’s been a bit of a weird year, and there’s been a lot of crazy shit to keep up with.

Anyway, this is also how I ended up reading the sentence informing me some people are worried dogs are getting autism from vaccines.

Outbreaks of rabies seem to be rising across the U.S., CDC surveillance shows

    • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      0·
      4 days ago

      I think it’s that attitude with any neurodivergence or mental health related issue. You know, all the things that doctors didn’t know about diagnosing “just didn’t exist” in the past.

      Like we saw the consequences of people struggling through life, not getting a diagnosis, and not understanding why life was so challenging. For example, my dad was dyslexic and my mom very likely had ADHD, but neither was ever diagnosed.

      They just struggled constantly through school, had terrible self esteem, and when somebody told them to just give up and choose a different career path they just said ok, guess I’m just not cut out for this.

      Then I got both, and my parents were ok with acknowledging the dyslexia bc it was pretty easy to diagnose.

      The ADHD was a whole other story, and I was told by my own parents (who were tough on me because they just didn’t want me ending up like them) and most of my teachers, that I was just careless and lazy over and over. I started hating school when I was like 8, and barely even finished high school. When I got to college by the skin of my teeth, I found stuff that actually interested me, but I still struggled so much through college and grad school. For a very long time, I believed the reason everything was so so much harder for me than my peers was bc I was just dumb/not cut out for it.

      I had to wait until I was in my 30s and had my own real job and insurance to even attempt to seek help and get an ADHD diagnosis, and even then it took a very long time, but I’m so glad I finally did it.

      Maybe if we can keep society from further devolving, in a few generations we can also get people to understand that acknowledging neurodivergence and mental health in kids means isn’t weakness and doesn’t mean you have to accept some kind of dangerous magical sorcery. It just means understanding that people often thrive when you allow them to just be themselves, and treat them like individuals with their own strengths, weaknesses, and unique skills.