Yay for maxillofacial surgery!

So, in this post-Thanksgiving edition of Horrible Things That Happen to People, we'll talk about things we're thankful for.

Things like not having a 7-kilo (15.4 pound) mass on your face like Marlie Casseus did. (This would probably more than double the weight of her head, for those of you keeping track at home.)

Or, if you are one of the unlucky few with a non-hereditary genetic disease called polyostotic fibrous dysplasia, that there exists such a thing as maxillofacial surgery, as well as charities that can help kids like Marlie Casseus (a 14-year-old Haitian girl), who don't have the money, have access to this surgery.

Polyostotic fibrous dysplasia is a disease that causes the bone to weaken and expand into a jelly-like substance with pockets of air and liquid that cause it to balloon out. In Marlie's case, this started visibly happening when she was 8, although it could have begun as young as 5. By the time she was 12, she no longer went to school. Her face was so distended that she could not talk or eat solid food, and she only had one good eye. Her nose had disappeared, leaving only her gaping nostrils visible.


But, like I said, the growth was able to be removed during a 17-hour surgery. It's great to have things to be thankful for, isn't it?

(To read the news article about Marlie, go here. Or, you can read more about fibrous dysplasia.)

Count Fistula

You know something is going to be a Horrible Thing (and therefore of great interest to me) when the news article starts out like this:

"Nov. 13, 2006 - Warning: do not read this story if you are easily disturbed by graphic information, or are under age, or are easily upset by accounts of gruesome sexual violence."

Newsweek's World News reports on the problem of rape in Congo being used as a means of terrorism, to continue a war that is supposed to be over. But this isn't your garden-variety rape, here. These women have been raped and abused so badly that they've developed fistulas.

Fistulas (here, where the barrier between the vagina and the rectum or the vagina and the bladder is torn, connecting the two areas) are pretty rare in most parts of the world. Even really violent rapes don't usually cause fistulas. So when western doctors heard about the vast amount of fistula reports, they didn't believe it. Then they realized what was happening-- there is a vicious circle of almost ritualized rape in many areas of Congo, especially the countryside. One faction will raid a village, kill, rape the women, and leave. The surviving men raid the village supporting the first group and do the same. These groups each have a "signature" for when they rape women, which usually involves inserting something into the woman's vagina. Occasionally they even shoot the woman through the vagina, but they are careful not to kill her. They don't want to kill her, they want to cause as much damage as possible. These women will then become incontinent and infected, and almost certainly shunned by their society. Many will never be able to have children. Some can become continent again if they receive treatment and surgery-- others can't. I would like to point out that I have been using the term "woman" here loosely-- the victims are all ages. The oldest victim was 71. The youngest? Only 12 months old.

Horrible Things That Happen to People: Police

So, as you may have heard by now, there was a bad incident in one of the UCLA libraries where a student was tasered up to five times by campus police. He was asked to show his student ID and refused, and he was then asked to leave. He refused to do this as well.

However (and this isn't in every news article), when the campus cops showed up, he grabbed his backpack and started to leave. One of the cops grabbed the student's arm, and the student stopped and told the cop to let go. Another cop approached, and the student began yelling, "get off me!" Then the police tasered the student for the first time. The student fell to the floor and cried out in pain, telling the police he had a medical issue. The cops repeatedly told him to stand up, and tasered him again when he would not (or could not) do so. The student repeatedly cried, "I said I'd leave!" and variants thereof. The cops also told the other students who had congregated that if they didn't stay back, they'd get tasered as well. The student continued to struggle and was eventually shocked five times.

And, of course, he was Muslim.

73 people died from tasers in 2005. There was a recent death caused by tasers in my home state of Wisconsin, where a schizophrenic man died after being shocked twice. He was not shocked because he was being violent, only because he didn't want to put his hands behind his back so that he could be handcuffed.

80% of suspects shocked by tasers were not brandishing any weapon. Often "painful compliance" techniques are used by police on peaceful protesters, especially when they are in large groups. Note that tasers are not meant to be used in this way; they are meant to be used when cops would otherwise use a gun, to decrease mortalities. Also note that to have a license for a taser, one must themselves be shocked by one. So these cops knew exactly how it felt to be shocked. And they also knew that they were only making it more difficult for the student to stand up as they shocked him.

See the video shot by a student witnessing the event at YouTube. It's pretty haunting, and you can see a lot that didn't make it to the news articles (e.g. the student repeating "I said I'd leave!"). You can read a statement by the acting chancellor of UCLA here. There's news articles everywhere, you can start here or here, but my favorite article is here.

Rapist getting off to an early start

A boy under the age of 7 is accused of sexually assaulting a female classmate with his fingers and then a stick he found on the playground. Jesus Christ. What is our world coming to? What is wrong with this kid? The truly horrible thing is-- this boy might still be at this same school. Of course, the school district is going to take measures to "keep the two children separated." Right, that will work well, I'msosure.

Link (with video of news broadcast).

From the frontlines...

So my roommate works at a center here in town where she deals with tenants in their dealings with their landlords. She, knowing my love for horrible things that happen to people, brings home this story:

A young couple rent an apartment. They need the place right away, so they go through all the contracts, etc. pretty quickly and don't have the place checked out. I mean, why would you need to? Their first night everything is uneventful, and they go to bed.

The next morning they are rushed to the emergency room.

So what happened? Turns out there was a fireplace which had become blocked or some such, and they had a case of acute carbon monoxide poisoning. The doctors at the ER said that if they'd stayed home for as little as two hours more, they most likely would have died. The problem could be fixed, and a carbon monoxide detector could be installed, but the couple isn't crazy about coming back to live in a place that almost killed them. I can't blame them, myself.

For more on carbon monoxide poisoning, go here. Also, I remind you that this is different from carbon dioxide poisoning, which I mentioned in this post.