“First, do no harm” A nice little aphorism associated with the practice of medicine. It would be nice if it were applied.

A neighbor has a condition that periodically flares up and requires a course of antibiotics. There is no real ‘cure’, but he is aware of the symptoms when it occurs, and knows enough to take care of it before he ends up in the hospital.

So, he had an episode on Monday, the 5^th, and called his doctor to get a prescription. Unfortunately his doctor wasn’t in, and the doctor covering, told my neighbor to go to the emergency room.

I am aware of this because the neighbor called me to give him a ride home, as the person who took him to the emergency room, had to leave him.

At the emergency room they gave him the prescription, and decided to start him off with an antibiotic administered through an IV.

On Saturday, the 10^th, my neighbor called to tell me he was in the hospital with a staph infection caused by the IV.

In the hospital everyone wears rubber gloves when dealing with patients. They have boxes of them all over the place. The thing is, those gloves are not sterile. They sit out in the open where people can sneeze on them, and everyone who uses them pulls them out with bare hands. My vet washes his hands before and after touching an animal, the hospital staff don’t seem to bother, and use the gloves instead.

The worse part of this, assuming the infection doesn’t kill my neighbor, as happened to one of his uncles, is that the hospital will bill my neighbor for the infection they gave him.

Aliy spent an hour less on the trail between Shaktoolik and Koyuk than Dallas did, so it is all down to rest time. He has a little over an hour and half lead, but he is running a rest deficit.

At this point it is who is the best judge of the amount of rest the puppies need, and then the amount of rest they need, to make the run to White Mountain, where there’s an 8-hour mandatory stop before the 77 mile sprint to Nome.

Update at Noon CDT: Aliy left Koyuk 22 minutes after Dallas.

Dallas dropped a dog at Koyuk and is down to 10, while Aliy has 12. John Baker is holding to his rest schedule. He also had a faster run to Koyuk than Dallas.

Update at 8:45 PM CDT:

Beyond Elim
1 Dallas Seavey (34)
At Elim
2 Aliy Zirkle (14) +0:32
Beyond Koyuk
3 Aaron Burmeister (44)
4 Ramey Smyth (21)
5 Mitch Seavey (35)
6 Peter Kaiser (28)
7 John Baker (11)
8 Ray Redington Jr (2)
At Koyuk
9 Ken Anderson (39)
10 Michael Williams Jr (51)
11 DeeDee Jonrowe (17)
12 Sigrid Ekran (24)
13 Sonny Lindner (59)
14 Brent Sass (50)^Q
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