Honolulu Star-Advertiser © Susan Scott
July 12, 1999
The aspect of having my column on the Star-Bulletin’s Internet site (starbulletin.com) is that my columns now live forever.
In the old days, when I wrote a piece, it was soon just so much fish wrap. But today, thanks to Web searches, my columns get resurrected with regularity.
Usually, I view this as good news. I like writing columns about things marine and am glad to know they’re useful to people months or even years after originally published. But occasionally, I’m not sure how to handle the e-mail I get.
By far, the most common type of message I receive is from students asking me to tell them everything I know about a marine animal I wrote about in a past column. The requests, from kids in first grade through college, are usually for a report due the next morning. Thus, while I ponder how to answer these desperate appeals, which could take weeks, the report deadline has passed and I’m off the hook.
Other letters baffle me. Here’s one: “I can understand you wanting to save sharks. But allowing traditional doctors to treat cancer is a mistake. Cures cannot come out in mainstream society because that would create an imbalance in the economy. So we must all suffer.”
Huh? I guess this reader did not believe my report of a medical study showing that shark cartilage does not help cancer victims.
Many of my columns have medical themes because before I studied marine biology, I was a nurse. Another reason for my interest in marine medicine is that I am married to an emergency physician, Craig Thomas, who is an ocean man through and through.
THE most common medical questions that come to me by e-mail are about jellyfish and Portuguese man-of-war stings: What can I do for my stung child? How long will the sting last? Why are there so many different cures for jellyfish stings? Where can I get reliable information?
The answers to these questions are nearly always too specific for a newspaper column and too detailed for an e-mail reply. But I did find an answer to this dilemma: A year ago, I wrote a book about jellyfish stings and other marine injuries with my doctor husband.
The book is called “All Stings Considered” and is available on the University of Hawaii Press Web site, on Amazon.com, or at local bookstores. This book contains the latest biological and medical science on marine injuries in Hawaii but is pertinent to other areas too. It should answer most readers’ questions about jellyfish stings and other marine injuries.
My e-mail messages aren’t always about bodily harm nor are they always local. A column about lobsters prompted an Australian reader to write that there they call such creatures yabbies. Another time, I corresponded with a researcher in Scotland who was interested in the cameras Hawaii researchers attached to monk seals. And recently an Indonesian doctor wrote asking about needlefish injuries in Hawaii.
Although it’s thrilling to hear from someone on the other side of the world, my favorite e-mails come from Hawaii readers. Usually the letters are close to both heart and home.
One reader recently asked if Potter’s angelfish really still swim in the Ala Wai Boat Harbor. (Yes. A pair live in the rocks near Slip No. 769). Another writes a nice story about some flying fish he and his daughter saw in Waimea Bay.
And here’s the letter of every writer’s dreams, come just last week: “You have a delightful way with words. Thank you for the wonderful story.”