BUG GUTS & Beauty
A move to a new house is always an adventure. The move of the County Dialysis clinic next to the North Street Walk In Clinic was no different. Patients and staff are still getting used to having more space. So far there are plenty of laughs as we all get used to how procedures change and stay the same.
Dialysis is a life-long treatment program. Every day one has to keep track of how much fluid is taken into the body. Each patient is warned about the dangers of having too much fluid. The kidneys remove fluid and when they are working it’s possible for a person to drink large amounts of liquid or eat a whole watermelon without a problem. But with kidney disease and kidney failure, fluid buildup can only be removed by machine help. The body swells up and it’s entirely possible that the heart could drown in too much fluid. Dialysis removes this fluid. At the same time it cleans the blood of impurities, toxins, and excess chemicals that can harm the body. It is not a perfect replacement. By keeping fluid intake within a manageable amount other problems are avoided.
To celebrate the move, the Clinic hosted an open house last week. It was the chance to see the new equipment; meet the staff; and see the quality of the new facility. Your donations have helped and as one of many patients at the facility, thank you!
Now that summer is here it’s nice to see the landscape greening up. The sound of lawnmowers and leaf blowers serenades all neighborhoods. Has the Star City thought about hiring goats for maintenance needs? Goats work cheap. They are personable. And thanks to their guts, they are terrific at reprocessing vegetable matter. The result is no cost fertilizer. The city government is missing an opportunity to save the besieged taxpayers of Presque Isle money. It’s a tourist opportunity.
Tourists like to think that every place they visit is unique. If Presque Isle were to convert to a Goat Maintenance Model it could then sell the images on calendars, offer photo ops and naming rights, and provide a reason for Maine to come to the Star City. Unlike chemical sprays, there are no residual poisons that need to be monitored. Goats are somewhat trainable and money can be made from selling the whole of the animal.
The Goat Maintenance Model would lower taxes while providing a variety of new income sources. In the climate of today, the solons of the City Council would be well advised to be getting their goats.
Orpheus Allison is a photojournalist living in The County who graduated from UMPI and earned a master of liberal arts degree from the University of North Carolina. He began his journalism career at WAGM television later working in many different areas of the US. After 20 years of television he changed careers and taught in China and Korea.
