"Huh?"
"Yea, it's..." I proceeded to tell her all about the history of the virus and the book. I promised to get her a copy and did so. Later, her mother said the book freaked her out, made her a bit anxious. I sort of felt sorry about that. It's such a descriptive book. Not for the squeamish...like I. I told my little admirer about my first read of the book. There was a girl sitting beside me, curious about my "Ewws, and Ahs," in reaction to the quite explicit graphic detail of real life incidences. She asked what I was reading. I explained. She asked to read a little. I warned her about the graphic nature of it. She insisted that she can handle it, "I'm a medical student at Duke." So I presented a couple passages for her to read. "Ewwww, oh my God!" And shoves the book back at me!
It is now just a year after, and there's an Ebola outbreak presently in the news! I am apprehensive. It's the most serious Ebola outbreak to date. The Ebola virus is a slate wiper. It decimates entire villages. It dies out only after there is no one left to infect. If you haven't read The Hot Zone by Richard Preston, please do so, especially since it is in the news now!
The Hot Zone, by Richard Preston.
The seats are narrow and jammed together on these commuter airplanes, and you notice everything that is happening inside the cabin. The cabin is tightly closed, and the air recirculates. If there are any smells in the air, you perceive them. You would not have been able to ignore the man who was getting sick. He hunches over in his seat. There is something wrong with him, but you can't tel exactly what is happening.
He is holding an airsickness bag over his mouth. He coughs a deep cough and regurgitates something into the bag. The bag swells up.
Perhaps he glances around, and then you see that his lips are smeared with something slippery and red, mixed with black specks, as if he has been chewing coffee grounds. His eyes are the color of rubies, and his face is an expressionless mass of bruises. The red spots, which a few days before had started out as starlike speckles, expanded and merged into huge, spontaneous purple shadows; his whole head is turning black-and-blue. The muscles of his face droop. The connective tissue in his face is dissolving, and his face appears to hang from underlying bone, as if the face is detaching itself from the skull. He opens his mouth and gasps into the bag, and the vomiting goes on endlessly. It will not stop, and he keeps bringing up liquid, long after his stomach should have been empty. The airsickness bag fills up to the brim with a substance known as vomit negro, or the black vomit. The black vomit is not real y black; it is a speckled liquid of two colors, black and red, a stew of tarry granules mixed with fresh red arterial blood. It is hemorrhage, and it smells like a slaughterhouse. The black vomit is loaded with virus. It is highly infective, lethal y hot, a liquid that smell of the vomit negro fills the passenger cabin. The airsickness bag is brimming with black vomit, so Monet closes the bag and rolls up the top. The bag bulging and softening, threatening to leak, and he hands it to a flight attendant.
Many are not aware of the outbreak right here in the US on October 2, 1989 in Reston, Va. Ebola Reston.
https://web.stanford.edu/group/virus/filo/ebor.html
Please read up on it. You may need the info if it reaches our shores, or if you're travelling abroad! And do check out current news!!!
Again, I seriously recommend the book. It sits on my coffee table.
Edit:
There has been two significant, informative forks of this thread. I'd like to keep the information together, but threads inevitably become separated. Therefore ...
Important forks of this thread ...
Sustainability vs Survivalist
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=6153
Practical Tips, Etc. & Format
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=6301
Edit 2:
An eighth of the Hot Zone in audio
http://youtu.be/m5kjNMhQffQ
Ebola virus outbreak 2014 warning
http://youtu.be/EaZqfwFVjgQ
Pestilence : Mutating Airborne Ebola Virus Diagnosed inside US for the first time
http://youtu.be/dDsPrWK68Hs
In the Hot Zone with Virus X - Richard Preston:
http://youtu.be/17Yh6xkCNpQ
Elbows-Deep in Ebola Virus - Richard Preston:
http://youtu.be/5G6A4ttmruA
.