Goodbye, Teddy
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the last of the brothers, died and was buried this week. Along with millions of others, I will miss him.
It’s been reported that Kennedy wrote a letter to Pope Benedict XVI earlier in the year, asking for the prayers of His Holiness, as he struggled with the brain cancer that ultimately took his life. In that communication he admitted to being “an imperfect human being.”
Of course, yes, he was imperfect. So were Jack and Bobby. So is everyone. We are, after all, human. Despite his imperfections, however, he was a giant of a man... doing so much for so many for so many years.
David Horsey published an editorial cartoon last Thursday, with this Kennedy quote:
If by a liberal, they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind; someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions; someone who cares about the welfare of the people, their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, their civil liberties; someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicion that grips us; if that is what they mean by a liberal, I am proud to be a liberal.
RIP, Teddy.
My Mission Statement
Last March, I posted an entry entitled “Really: Who Are You?” – an essay where I attempted to outline, as clearly as I could, some views on the meaning of my existence. Since that time, it’s been a summer of continuing reflection as I significantly changed most of my vacation plans in order to address health issues and to confront, once again, the matter of my mortality.
As I was browsing some of my older computer files yesterday, I came across a document composed sometime in 2004. [That was the year I found myself struggling to redefine my identity after being involuntarily displaced from long-term employment (with the Oregon University System) and commenced a process of job-search (and high stress) that ultimately lasted three and a half years.] I entitled that 2004 file “Personal Mission Statement” – which I restate here:
The multiple purposes of my lifetime on this planet are to:
Nurture my intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual selves
Have deep and meaningful relationships
Experience life to the fullest and live until I die
Show up, be present, and tell the truth
Be involved, yet free of attachment, and, above all things
Be true to myself.
Amazingly, I still stand by these statements of purpose.
This is my life.
Man plans, God laughs
I have a European friend who, like me, at this moment, is on vacation. And, somewhat parallel to my experience, it appears that her time “on holiday” is not exactly all red roses and vanilla ice cream. (Whatever that might mean...I just made that up.) I know of this through her tweets...as I listen to her voice (on Twitter) speak of tears and pain.
Now, my vacation does not feel as viscerally low as hers sounds. However, I did schedule my vacation time this summer to relax, re-charge, and re-energize. And it’s not turning out that way at all.
Life: how cunning and clever you are. Mentsch tracht, Gott lacht. (Man plans, God laughs.)
My first week of vacation was scheduled for the week of June 22, and I had plans to re-visit Santa Fe and take lots of photos. Well, you know what happened then...June 22 was the day I ended up scheduling my prostate biopsy. The entire week was devoted to that procedure and my recovery. No break there.
I tried to be philosophical and say, “well, I’ve always got the time away in Oregon and two days of the Oregon Country Fair!” This weekend was supposed to be another photo-filled few days for me in my old stomping grounds, at one of my favorite events in the universe.
At the time of my biopsy, it didn’t much occur to me that I’d still be recovering this far down the line (it’ll be three weeks tomorrow from the day of the procedure). But, recovering, still, I am.
Because of the rather unpleasant symptoms associated with this bumpy recovery process, I’ve been advised to limit my physical activity. And, since my visits to the Country Fair typically involve hours of walking with heavy camera equipment, I decided against attending at all.
Bummer.
Not that my time in Oregon has been a total waste. Actually, quite the contrary. I’ve had time to visit with a few of my favorite people in the world, which has been quite delightful.
However, here’s what I recognize: I’m not rested. I’m not relaxed. I’m not re-charging. And, I’m mildly depressed. My body issues have tended to dominate both vacation periods, necessitating a change in my photography plans (my preferred time-off, relaxation activity).
I feel out-of-control and cheated. You know, the “life is not fair” kinda thing.
Boys and Their Toys
Given the intensity of my life lately, especially the high-stakes medical testing I’ve had to endure (see the previous post, including its two updates), I thought I’d offer up some news today of a much lighter nature:
I have a new cell phone.
Big deal, eh?
Well, of course, it’s not just ANY cell phone I’m talkin’ about here. I discarded my old Motorola Razr for the latest, greatest, new-generation iPhone from Apple: the 3GS. It became available last Friday, June 19, and I was one of the first to own one (along with a reported one million others in the first three days of its release). I reserved it online and went to the local Apple store that morning to pick it up. When I arrived, I was ushered directly into the inner sanctum, despite the incredibly long line of sad souls who didn’t have the foresight to make arrangements in advance. (After I met my iPhone specialist, it only took two hours of my life, along with several hundred dollars, to make this all happen.)
Basically, here’s what I did: I bribed myself. For scheduling the prostate biopsy, having to actually go through with it, and needing to cancel a scheduled vacation to Santa Fe, I thought I earned, and deserved, a treat. So I chose the iPhone. (And, of course, the name of the device is a total misnomer since only one of the things it does is serve as a cell phone. I’m sure I could get it to serve me breakfast in bed, if only I could find the right “app.”)
So, during the last few days, I have been learning how to use this marvelous piece of technology...which is really a computer that I can clip to my belt. If you email me these days, there’s a good chance, I’ll even reply to you from my “phone.”
Right now, life is good. I am cancer free and I have an incredible new toy. Plus, in a couple of weeks, I'll be totally escaping reality and roaming around the Oregon Country Fair.
Doctoring in the Western World
Please note:
This long essay (it’s at least four times optimum blog-post length) makes my personal case against the “medical establishment.” I do not take on the insurance companies here, though, but rather the doctors who provide front-line health care for us all.
Although I deal at length with the PSA blood test in the discussion below, I totally omit mention of the controversy currently raging about this procedure.
Caveat lector: this post would likely merit an “R” rating near the end...
I’m one of those old geezers for whom the TV commercials advertising such products as Flomax and Proscar are made: I have an enlarged prostate [benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH)]. BPH is characterized by a number of urinary symptoms, one of the most obvious being the number of times I have to get up during the night to relieve myself. (For a list of other symptoms, click here.)
As I have monitored my condition over the last 12 years, with the assistance of various urologists in the cities I have lived, I have regularly (at least every six months) undergone the blood test for prostate specific antigen (PSA), the front-line screening protocol for prostate cancer. During this time, as my prostate has grown in size, my PSA has risen slowly, steadily, but not dangerously. I keep track of the results by means of an Excel spreadsheet and graph, and even furnish my doctors with a least-squares plot of these data at every appointment. At one point, back in late 2002, there was an unusual spike in the one of the readings, and I was advised to have a prostate biopsy. This procedure is a very invasive and uncomfortable one, but I went ahead, in early 2003, and did it anyway. After eight full days anxiously waiting, I finally was informed that the result was negative. Since that time I have simply continued to monitor the slow, steady, predictable rise of my PSA level.
Well: except that that all changed recently. In both January and March of this year, my PSA tests have yielded significantly higher readings – data that do not fit neatly within the paradigm of my least-squares analysis. After the January result, my urologist reacted as I did: one test alone means nothing. Let’s wait a bit (a few weeks) and do it over again.
And that’s what we did, though the second test in March indicated a slightly elevated level compared to the January number. It was at this point that he stated that it was time for concern and said, “you know where we go from here.” He meant a biopsy, of course, and I declined, indicating that I wanted to wait for one more blood (PSA) test before undergoing that procedure again.
However, he was very insistent that we do a biopsy, and I was just as opinionated that it was not yet time. I told him that I had one more hypothesis to test out before I would submit to the procedure. Simply put, my theory is: my PSA number is inflated due to a new dietary supplement I had started taking. Last October (over two months prior to the January blood test), I began a product called ArthroZyme, advertised as an anti-inflammatory agent, to see if it would help me out with the chronic muscle pain that has plagued me for the last few years. The active ingredient in this product is a proteolytic enzyme called serratiopeptidase. And, as it turns out, PSA itself is itself a proteolytic enzyme. I believe it is much more than coincidental that immediately after I began taking a proteolytic enzyme supplement I start testing differently for a specific proteolytic enzyme. I believe the two phenomena are connected and that this is the simplest possible, and most likely, explanation. I contend that this hypothesis is one that merits serious consideration, and that I should, therefore, simply stop taking the supplement and re-test.
As it turned out, I was only able to leave the urologist’s office in early April after hearing the strongest language he could muster that I was making a mistake and the he strongly recommended this test. NOW.
Of course, I don’t think I’m being at all unreasonable.
I’m the guy, after all, who was told, by TWO doctors, in no uncertain terms, one night in an emergency room, that he had bladder cancer. But I didn’t, as the cystoscopy (now there’s an invasive procedure), performed a couple of days later in a doctor’s office, conclusively demonstrated.
I’m the one who submitted to a biopsy back in 2003 on the basis of a PSA spike. And I didn’t have cancer, then, either.
I’m the one who has been totally discounted by my primary care physician, to the point of being told that my body aches and pains were “psychiatric” in origin and that the supplements I take (and rely on) couldn’t possibly be doing me any good.
And, I’m the person who was kept waiting for a half hour in a neurologist’s office after having experienced the intake nurse botch the explanation of my test results – only to finally talk to the doctor and learn that the (MRI) result in question was inconsequential.