Still alive! New chapter about to go up, and a word about antimalarial medicines · 4:49am Apr 4th, 2012
Yes, I am still alive! Afghanistan hasn't changed much, if anyone was wondering.
On to more important topics, though: the next chapter of The First Light of Dawn is (draft) complete, and will hopefully be posted in 3 or 4 days.
TFLoD has a special place in my heart. It was the first 'idea' I ever had for a pony fic, though it ended up being the second one I put to paper (Maiden Flight was a short one-shot I wrote, to see if I could get on EqD). I felt terrible about leaving it unfinished, but at the time I had too many one-shot ideas bouncing around in my head... then I had the idea for the Skyrim crossover... then I had to write Naked Singularity, and get ready for deployment, then actually deploy, and well here we are.
One of the nice things about being deployed is that it forces you to organize your time. Your options for time basically boil down to work, eat, work out, and sleep. Anything else you can squeeze in is entirely up to you. For me, that means studying and writing about ponies! (Note: I'm studying for my master's degree. Not studying ponies.)
Now then, your weird topic for the day:
Every servicemember in Afghanistan takes some form of anti-malarial medication. In my case it's doxycycline, a relative of mefloquine. Anti-malarials have the same standard side-effects as most anti-biotics... i.e. they make you feel nauseous if you don't take them with food.
Anti-malarials have another interesting side-effect, though: vivid dreams.
When some people hear about this side effect, they can become interested or even excited to take the drug. I mean, vivid dreams! What's not to like? It turns out, they're not all they're cracked up to be.
They are vivid, don't get me wrong. These dreams are sharper and more colorful than anything I've ever experienced. There's absolutely nothing to make you realize you're dreaming, and therein lies the problem. The dreams are still chaotic, disorganized, confusing and in some cases disturbing, just like any dream. The only difference is they're so real they lack the dissociated effect of most dreams.
We use the term 'dreamlike' to describe something that doesn't seem real. Things that seem distant, hazy or dislocated from reality. Doxycycline and mefloquine dreams aren't 'dreamlike.' Several times a night I wake up going 'wtf just happened?' Fortunately, the effects wear off with time, and after about a month I've started to lose that effect.
Long story short, the dreams aren't all they're cracked up to be. I recommend avoiding them unless on a doctor's orders.
That still sounds pretty cool.
I've been trying to perform lucid dreaming but I don't think it's the same thing without using drugs. I hope everything goes well over there and I'm looking forward to more of your fics. 
BTW you should write down those dreams if they're that vivid. I'd like to read that too.
Mushrooms. Though, anti-malarials tend to be simpler chemicals. At least, the common ones are. An interesting thing to note is that sickle cell trait (not disease) is an immunity to malaria. The malaria attaches to a red blood cell, in an attempt to reproduce, but the cell deforms and is rendered useless to the virus, and is filtered out by the kidneys. Two traits makes the cells deform because screw you, and that causes all the other problems.
Another interesting thing is the statistical epidemiological viewpoint. Each living organism has a certain probability to mutate, one way or another. Sometimes diseases like malaria can become immune to treatments. (Think MRSA - resistant staph) Thing is, many thousands of malaria organisms can live within a single human host. A few thousand human patients can represent a malaria population greater than that of humans! The trouble is that this allows for a high probability that a few malaria organisms will become immune to treatments. This is exponentially mitigated by simultaneous multiple or (in your case) preventive treatments, with an additional treatment held in reserve for patients who develop resistant strains.
Did I mention I'm an egg farmer?
ΔΓ
It is a shame that a healthy and repeated dosing with gin and tonic doesn't do much good against malaria anymore.
Stay safe. Well, it's your job to be less safe than one would normally like... but stay as safe as you can.
Yeah. At one point in my life I was having incredibly vivid disturbing dreams brought on my stress. I believe my brain decided that dreams suck because I've have about 5 dreams I can recall over more than a decade.
Good to hear from you. The news coming out of there is scary as usual but you and all the other soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines are in our prayers...
...to Celestia
Thanks for your service and I hope the VA doesn't screw you when you get back home.
Great to see a blog post from you, Cold. You stay safe.
P.S. I'm stealing that line for my fic (you know which).
I'm glad you are still alive. I'm worryed.
hey whats your rank? o.o
yay, it is so great to year from you again, we all hope you are doing well
That's a relief. Though I've never been to the middle-east myself, I've heard that it's essentially one big sandbox, with small towns and resorts scattered throughout like raisins in my bran.
This true?
Glad to see you alive. Continue not dying... and army stuff.