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math and medicine
Jun. 17th, 2025 08:57 amIt's been a while (all these posts are gonna start this way,) since we last met, gentle reader, the puppy mentioned in the earlier posts proceeded from his youth into dog middle age, and due to a terrible terrible disease, has gone on to his reward in the fields of elysium. I wish him the best, and if such things are possible, hope he knew I loved him dearly.
Since I have a self-love problem, I find that having a dog is a great relief, and enable me to express some emotions *through* my love and care for the dog, so after a reasonable time, I am making my home a home for a new puppy, and this is quite challenging.
Today I had to get him another round of shots, and the vet recommended dosing him with children's benadryl.
The vet said to give him a milligram for every pound of body weight. Since the little elf is *tiny* (really tiny) he needed just 4 milligrams. The children's benadryl had 12.5 milligrams per 5 milligram dose, so... after some worry and head scratching, I determined he needed a scant 1.5 milligrams of bubble-gum flavored benadryl (I know, sweet pup, and I am sorry. Bubble-gum is not a taste engineered for dogs. I'm sure he'd much rather have, "Half-rotten piece of tree bark" flavor, but tastes being what they are... you'll have to suffer through hubba bubba tinted tincture.)
Anyhow, I did this math calc like, 22 times, and I measured the liquid at least twice, before dosing. Which brings me round, FINALLY, to what you must be thinking, "what prey tell, Steffan, is the POINT?"
Math. Math never changes. It persists in being relevant to my life in almost a daily fashion. When I have to calculate doses and measure them in flasks (to the BOTTOM of the meniscus) I am treated to the echoing cobwebby voice of my Maths teacher in middle school. "You can't fake your way out of math, it will haunt you, specterwise, your entire life. Get good at it, or learn to cope with being a failure." (I know, the internal dialogue, it is merciless, (which is why i need a dog.))
But then I thought, "why?" This benadryl as an example, could have a completely different way of being dispensed. Milligrams per Milligram seems awfully left brain oriented. Imagine if it was "add enough A into B until the color of the mix is roughly the same shade as a dandelion. If you've forgotten what color a dandelion is, then go outside." If you think about it for a moment, it's just as valid and exacting as measuring out 1.5 milliliters into a tiny flask, one is just math based, and the other is based on the perception of yellow. If you are going to tell me at this point, that perceptions of color are different for each person, I will counter that so... are milligrams per milligram.
It made me recall, years ago, coming across an old handbook of transcribed "hoodoo and rootwork" spells, and how delightfully prescriptive and creative they were in the application of the recipe without a scrap of math. "Add a pinch of the resulting powder to a glass of water, drink half, throw the other half away, walk backwards through a doorway with your eyes closed. Don't open your mail for a week."
It's perhaps a thin comparison, but I do run across similar descriptions in recipes and preparing materials for art supplies. The curry is done "when it tastes right" which is something you have to learn from your grandmother. The mix of cement needs to be "like mashed potatoes the day after thanksgiving." Things that reference the culture, the heritage, the color, the texture, the shape and size, it's comparative properties to play-doh, etc. All valid ways of measuring and telling people how to get it right, without cracking out a slide rule or a pen and paper.
I'm just thinking, there are ways, but math is such a shorthand for "do it exactly and just so" and a kind of a crutch in that regard. True enough there are times when you HAVE to nail it, and perhaps the best way is to measure out just the right bit of this and that and weigh it, and measure it again, and finally cut it. But there is a part of me that thinks it's just due to a huge lack of imagination, and I do know from experience that no amount of writing down and measuring a biscuit recipe will make biscuits turn out perfectly. For that you need to make a lot of biscuits. You need to account for flour not always being milled to the same degree, the moisture in the air, if you are cooking in an electric or gas oven, and how it all comes together isn't measurable per se, it's a matter of knowing and feeling, that the biscuits are right.
Since I have a self-love problem, I find that having a dog is a great relief, and enable me to express some emotions *through* my love and care for the dog, so after a reasonable time, I am making my home a home for a new puppy, and this is quite challenging.
Today I had to get him another round of shots, and the vet recommended dosing him with children's benadryl.
The vet said to give him a milligram for every pound of body weight. Since the little elf is *tiny* (really tiny) he needed just 4 milligrams. The children's benadryl had 12.5 milligrams per 5 milligram dose, so... after some worry and head scratching, I determined he needed a scant 1.5 milligrams of bubble-gum flavored benadryl (I know, sweet pup, and I am sorry. Bubble-gum is not a taste engineered for dogs. I'm sure he'd much rather have, "Half-rotten piece of tree bark" flavor, but tastes being what they are... you'll have to suffer through hubba bubba tinted tincture.)
Anyhow, I did this math calc like, 22 times, and I measured the liquid at least twice, before dosing. Which brings me round, FINALLY, to what you must be thinking, "what prey tell, Steffan, is the POINT?"
Math. Math never changes. It persists in being relevant to my life in almost a daily fashion. When I have to calculate doses and measure them in flasks (to the BOTTOM of the meniscus) I am treated to the echoing cobwebby voice of my Maths teacher in middle school. "You can't fake your way out of math, it will haunt you, specterwise, your entire life. Get good at it, or learn to cope with being a failure." (I know, the internal dialogue, it is merciless, (which is why i need a dog.))
But then I thought, "why?" This benadryl as an example, could have a completely different way of being dispensed. Milligrams per Milligram seems awfully left brain oriented. Imagine if it was "add enough A into B until the color of the mix is roughly the same shade as a dandelion. If you've forgotten what color a dandelion is, then go outside." If you think about it for a moment, it's just as valid and exacting as measuring out 1.5 milliliters into a tiny flask, one is just math based, and the other is based on the perception of yellow. If you are going to tell me at this point, that perceptions of color are different for each person, I will counter that so... are milligrams per milligram.
It made me recall, years ago, coming across an old handbook of transcribed "hoodoo and rootwork" spells, and how delightfully prescriptive and creative they were in the application of the recipe without a scrap of math. "Add a pinch of the resulting powder to a glass of water, drink half, throw the other half away, walk backwards through a doorway with your eyes closed. Don't open your mail for a week."
It's perhaps a thin comparison, but I do run across similar descriptions in recipes and preparing materials for art supplies. The curry is done "when it tastes right" which is something you have to learn from your grandmother. The mix of cement needs to be "like mashed potatoes the day after thanksgiving." Things that reference the culture, the heritage, the color, the texture, the shape and size, it's comparative properties to play-doh, etc. All valid ways of measuring and telling people how to get it right, without cracking out a slide rule or a pen and paper.
I'm just thinking, there are ways, but math is such a shorthand for "do it exactly and just so" and a kind of a crutch in that regard. True enough there are times when you HAVE to nail it, and perhaps the best way is to measure out just the right bit of this and that and weigh it, and measure it again, and finally cut it. But there is a part of me that thinks it's just due to a huge lack of imagination, and I do know from experience that no amount of writing down and measuring a biscuit recipe will make biscuits turn out perfectly. For that you need to make a lot of biscuits. You need to account for flour not always being milled to the same degree, the moisture in the air, if you are cooking in an electric or gas oven, and how it all comes together isn't measurable per se, it's a matter of knowing and feeling, that the biscuits are right.
