PPD

So, a couple of weeks back during jail pleas, I talked to a guy that kept coughing. When he did cough, he would hold a handkerchief up to his mouth. We were sitting fairly closely together at the counsel table in the courtroom. I generally try to talk quietly, so that others can't hear, and, as a result, I was fairly close to the guy. Of course, the coughing set off all sorts of alarms about tuberculosis, but I was so busy working the cases that I forgot to actually ask him if he had TB.

Last week, the jail notified us that the fellow does, in fact, have TB. So, it looks like I'll be making an appointment with my doctor for yet another PPD. I'm probably going to schedule the appointment another month out -- I understand that the incubation period for TB is relatively long, and I'd rather make one trip to the doctor's office than two.

Dire Predictions

There is a whole lot of concern that the State-wide public defender system is going to implode.

Some of it has to do with the funding problems that I've mentioned earlier. I don't really know the whole story, but the local paper has devoted a lot of space to the various bills in the legislature, as well was the Brian Nichols trial.

I'm not sure what this means for the State-wide system. Luckily, our office is almost entirely funded by our county, so our operations will be unaffected.