Serendipity

Downtown Le Roy, NY In this small town in upstate New York, there are still no answers to what caused the mysterious tics to hit the teenage girls, but there are plenty of possible theories...none of which are yet proven or dis-proven. I have been following this story since it broke, and since my last blog post, there has only been one decent article that I found in the New York Times. Here, the reporter did her research, but it left me with more questions than answers as she has brought up some unknown issues that haven't been mentioned previously. Some history: Located on the eastern border of Genesee County, LeRoy is one of the most picturesque communities in upstate New York. Firstsettled in 1797, the community is nestled along the beautiful Oatka Creek.  The tree-lined streets are lined with stately Victorian homes which provide numerous bed and breakfast retreats in a quiet setting, only half an hour from Rochester and...

Every week we are bombarded in the media with articles about teachers going too far in one way or another. For some time though, they have been mostly about teachers that have done the unthinkable: gotten into some kind of romantic and/or sexual affair with a student.  This morning though, I came across an article about a teacher who is also a coach, that went too far in a different way: making "insensitive and vulgar comments in front of students and players", as well as picking on the students that have come down with the mystery illness at Le Roy school in upstate NY. It seems that his insensativity led him to make up a chant while his basketball team (York) was playing against Le Roy's that went:    “One, Two, three, Tourette’s!” And supposedly this was said in the locker room and not on the basketball court. Falk reportedly qualified his ‘joke,’ telling his players, “I’m just kidding.” Well, his kidding cost him...he was removed from the coach pos...

There are still no answers forthcoming as to what has caused 19 students in LeRoy, NY to develop uncontrollable twitching. In the past week, a new theory was suggested: that social media is to blame. As a form of mass hysteria, experts are now suggesting that the use of Facebook and other various forms of social media are spreading these symptoms through the students like wildfire. According to  Dr. Laszlo Mechtler , chief of neurology at the Dent Neurologic Institute in Buffalo, these students know each other...some are best friends...their bodies are picking up these symptoms and it's going from one student to the next and on to the next. That means that the brain is actually subconsciously mimicking the twitching felt by others. While the exact neurologic pathway is still unclear, researchers believe the common factor is stress and anxiety. Mechtler emphasized that the girls are not faking their twitching. And it all comes back to the original ideas that this is part ...

Leroy High School, Leroy, NY A news story that I have been following for close to a month now, comes from a town about an hour away from me where 15 students (and now one adult) have been mysteriously afflicted with tics that are so bad that at least two female students have been pulled out of school and are now being home schooled. What amazes me about this is that no one seems to agree as to what is causing the illness. The students have been checked by various doctors and the theories and diagnoses abound: Tourette-syndrome , PANDAS ( Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections) , and Conversion Disorder . However, no one knows for sure. Is it something in the water? In the 1970's there was a railroad  spill of toxic chemicals: dumping a ton of cyanide crystals and gallons of Trichloroethene, or TCE’s. Even as I write this, more testing of the ground and water around the area continues. Late last week, Erin...