You’ll remember that two weeks ago, I was eagerly anticipating The Big Peace March scheduled for March 15 in downtown San Rafael. And, indeed, I was in attendance yesterday as a few interested citizens showed up to protest our continued involvement in Iraq.

This morning, the Marin Independent Journal reported…

Several hundred people attended a march and rally in downtown San Rafael on Saturday to protest the continued presence of U.S. troops in Iraq, just days before the five-year anniversary of the invasion…

In my opinion, this is truly a misrepresentation of the event.

I was there. I estimated the crowd at between 100 and 200 during the noon-time rally…after which I left. Unless there was a massive influx of participants for the actual march itself, immediately following the speeches, I believe our local reporter over-reached in doing his crowd estimate.

I found the turnout yesterday to be tremendously disappointing. As you may recall, I was similarly dismayed last year in downtown San Francisco when we gathered to protest the fourth anniversary of the war’s beginning.

My observations are more-or-less validated by a front-page article today in the San Francisco Chronicle, which states that…

The war in Iraq has gone on for five years now, but there is almost no sign of it in the Bay Area, a region where 7 million people live…

The Bay Area has a reputation for being a hotbed of anti-war sentiment, the legendary “Left Coast” where all the politicians are liberals and all the citizens are activists.

It is also the home of Travis Air Force Base, one of the country’s largest with a direct role in Iraq, and a place where anti-war protesters plan to mark the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war with parades and demonstrations.

But mostly, Bay Area people seem to have put the war in the back of their minds. They are not indifferent about the war. They just don't want to think about it.

I agree. People seem to have, mostly, put this war out of their heads: we seem to be in a kind of massive, nationwide, State Of Denial that the U.S. has so royally fucked up.

I ask: What will it take to shake us up? When are we ever going to get off our duffs and demand that this insanity stop?

Soundtrack Suggestion

Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

(“Where Have All The Flowers Gone?” – Pete Seeger)

With the results of the Wyoming caucuses now in, the difference today between Obama and Clinton is reported to be 142 delegates. The best guess is that neither candidate will garner enough in the remaining contests to go into this summer’s convention with the nomination assured.

So Hillary has recently tended to go maniacally negative. And – I hope you agree with me – Barack is looking more and more “presidential” all the time.

You had probably long-ago guessed that my candidate was John Edwards. Yes, I voted for him here in the California primary, even though by that time he had decided to call it quits. Edwards was the one that I was most drawn to: I want someone in the White House whom I can trust.

I’ll vote Democratic in November. That’s a given. And I so dearly want a candidate to vote for.

Obama is now that person. Regardless of where he stands on the issues, I see a person who is intelligent, articulate, level-headed, and honest-to-god leadership material. In Barack, I believe we have someone who has the potential to actually unite this country.

Obama is against the war. He’ll get us out – somehow. I really don’t care about the fine-print differences in the proposed healthcare plans. I trust that he’ll gather other smart people around him and lead us out of this recession.

And that he’ll inspire a sense of pride in being an American, for a change.

Should Hillary win the nomination, come November I’ll hold my nose and vote (not for her, but) against McCain. I submit that Obama’s recently-departed foreign-policy advisor Samantha Power was correct when she labeled Hillary a “monster.” Too bad she (Power) had to lose her job over such an obvious (though “negative”) truth.

It’s Hillary who is not presidential material. She is not a person to trust. It’s Hillary to watch your back for.

I choose Obama.

Soundtrack Suggestion

I’m a young soul in this very strange world hoping I could learn a bit about what is true and fake.
But why all this hate?
Try to communicate.
Finding trust and love is not always easy to make.

(“New Soul” -- Yael Naim)

For the last two years I’ve written about, and posted photographs from, the peace demonstrations I’ve attended. As we are all too-well-aware, “W” first lied to us, then took us to war with Iraq in March of 2003. Every year since then we’ve taken to the streets during this month to mark the tragic anniversary.

In 2006, I participated in the event in Portland, OR…the largest gathering of anti-war folk that I’ve ever been a part of. Last year, I traveled from my temporary residence in Roseburg, OR, to march in San Francisco.

As no mass weekend demonstration is apparently taking place in San Fran this year (mid-week activities are planned), I am going to attend the Big Peace March in downtown San Rafael, CA (the county seat of Marin).

Please join me, if you can, on Saturday, March 15.

Soundtrack Suggestion

Now I’ve been happy lately, thinking about the good things to come
And I believe it could be, something good has begun
Oh I’ve been smiling lately, dreaming about the world as one 
And I believe it could be, some day it’s going to come
Cause out on the edge of darkness, there rides a peace train 
Oh peace train take this country, come take me home again

(“Peace Train” – Cat Stevens)

As I was mulling over options after my visit to the neurologist, and in the context of my entire off-again/on-again relationship with Fibroplex (described in the previous entry), I scheduled another appointment with my primary-care physician. This is a report on that little adventure.

My primary-care guy is the one who has been ordering some tests and making the referrals to the specialists I’ve seen lately. During my initial appointment with him, I, of course, explained the history of my chronic-pain issues, including the opinion of one of my previous doctors that this is likely fibromyalgia I’m dealing with here. He was not exactly receptive to that theory, and suggested that, as much as anything, fibromyalgia is a diagnosis of exclusion. That is to say, before we could justify a fibromyalgia diagnosis, we should rule out a whole bunch of other things that just may be causing my symptoms.

I said, “OK.”

Hence my experiences, reported here previously, with such things as X-rays, bone scans, MRIs, blood and urine tests, physical therapy, and the neurologist consultation. As a result, we have ruled out a whole host of potential issues for me, including: tumors, diabetes, lyme disease, Hashimoto’s disease, lupus, multiple sclerosis, Vitamin-D deficiency, and heavy-metal toxicity (to name just a few).

This has all been quite a relief, of course. It seems as if I’m not going to die anytime soon. At least of what ails me currently.

Of course, I am still in pain. All the while, I continue to take my daily regimen of vitamins and dietary supplements (including, now, a slightly-reduced dose of Fibroplex). And I continue to see my Feldenkrais practitioner, a person who is helping me change some of the personal habits that apparently have contributed to my bodily woes.

So. Back to the story of the doctor’s-office visit.

I related to him my recent experience of stopping Fibroplex, and the negative impact it had on my body in the space of only about four days.

He took a look at the bottle of Fibroplex I had brought along for my show-and-tell and asked me how it was I came to take this supplement at this dose. When I informed him that a naturopathic physician in Oregon had suggested it, he replied that I “might want to hire a lawyer to talk about that,” implying, of course, that I sue my naturopath.

I said, “well, that’s not going to happen.”

Then came the really good part. “There’s just no way that stopping this (as he held the supplement bottle in his hand) could have produced the effect you describe. I think you’re ascribing a great deal of power to these pills to keep you functioning. But that just couldn’t be. I think we have to consider that there’s a significant psychiatric factor at work here.”

Oh, good. How entirely wonderful. My own doctor, instead of saying “how interesting, I wonder how we can figure what’s really going on with your body, given this information,” …. instead chooses to think I’m, well, (to use a technical term) nuts.

Here’s what I believe.

We don’t understand a lot about our bodies. There are many things that just can’t be explained. And, with some of the explanations that do exist, there are many folks out there who don’t, or won’t, accept or believe them. For example, take the recent article in the New York Times entitled “Drug Approved. Is Disease Real?” This piece discusses the recent FDA approval of Lyrica as the first prescription medication for fibromyalgia (a condition “characterized by chronic, widespread pain of unknown origin”). The author contends, not-so-subtly, that fibromyalgia is not a disease and that people who suffer from the constellation of symptoms typically characterized by the condition simply have not learned to live with pain that most people are able to cope with. Further, there is really no benefit of the recently-approved drug, other than for the drug companies to make a lot of money. (Well, of course, this last part is likely accurate.)

I don’t know whether fibromyalgia is “real” or not. Whatever that might mean. And, if it is, I don’t know whether or not I have “it.”  For the time being, I continue to have a condition that has no label, except to describe what is actually happening to me: chronic pain.

Yes, I acknowledge that there is quite likely a mind-body connection operative here. I wholeheartedly believe that. Psychoneuroimmunology is an established field in the scientific community, and I have confidently theorized that my long-standing anxieties associated with job loss; rejection and relationship loss; and dramatic life change, have all had a profound impact on my body.

So: let’s explore that. Let’s work with that. Let’s not dismiss my condition as merely “psychiatric” with no plan of action.

Because, the thing about pain is: it always hurts.

I thought I’d return, today, to a discussion of health and health care…issues that are constantly on my mind.

Ten days ago I had a second appointment with my neurologist. After my first visit late last year, I had a battery of tests, including brain and spinal MRIs – and more blood and urine work than I had ever had done at one time before. So, during this subsequent appointment, I was prepared to receive the results. After arrival, and hanging out for a few minutes in the waiting room, I was soon called to the back office where the doctor’s nurse practitioner saw me first.

She asked why I was there.

(Huh? Why am I here? You don’t know that?!)

I politely (as I could) informed her that I’d had a lot of tests done since the last time, and I was here for the follow-up. She asked if anything had changed with my condition, and I said, “no, we’ve done no interventions, only tests.”

She looked up my results on the computer in front of her, and quickly found the report from my brain MRI. She read from the screen, noting that the result was “unremarkable – that’s a good thing.” Then she scrolled to the report from the lumbar MRI, and started reading. She was totally winging this, I surmised, and when she got to a certain part that sounded like it might be going into delicate territory, something about an “irregularity” perhaps (I forgot the exact word, I was stunned that she was so obviously unprepared), she abruptly stopped and said, “well, we should probably let the doctor interpret these findings for you.”

I icily agreed. “Yes, that’s a good idea. Why don’t we let her do that.”

And then: I was left to hang out in the office alone for the next 25 minutes as I contemplated my fate, wondering what it could possibly be that we had left unread and unsaid.

Well, it turned out that the waiting was the hardest part. This clueless nurse practitioner had led me to the brink for nothing, really. When the doctor arrived, she stated that the lumbar MRI indicated I have a disc pressing on a nerve in the L5-S1 area, which, if I were symptomatic, should be causing shooting pain down my leg. Well, that’s not an issue I have, so the theory is that my body may have adjusted to this condition – and I may or may not ever experience this as a problem.

The MRI results apparently ruled out a whole host of potential issues for me, though, including MS. Despite the bumpy start with the nurse practitioner, I was now thinking, “this is going well.”

The more interesting result was from the blood work. It seems I have a terrifically high level of Vitamin B6, to the point that I am now diagnosed with “B6 toxicity” – as a possible explanation for my array of bodily aches and pains, especially my peripheral neuropathy. She ordered me to cease all forms of B6 intake immediately (in my ambitious daily regimen of dietary supplements).

When I got home to read the labels of my supplement bottles, I discovered that the major source of Vitamin B6 for me is in the supplement that I attribute to saving my life last year. It’s called Fibroplex, and it’s been nothing short of a wonder drug. So, I wondered,  what would happen if I stopped? …might my body have healed enough in the last thirteen months that I don’t really need it any more?

Well, despite my nervousness, last week I eliminated all B6 sources. Cold turkey. Including my beloved Fibroplex.

It didn’t take long to get an answer about the consequences. Within a couple of days, my head started to hurt. My ears clogged up; my hearing diminished. Within three days I had a splitting, mind-blowing headache, and I started to feel a veil of depression descend over me. By the fourth day, the pain from my head was becoming more generalized throughout my body, and I was remembering the awfulness of what my condition (whatever this is, perhaps it’s fibromyalgia, maybe something else entirely) can really bring to my life. And, I was thoroughly depressed. I showed up at work that day, but I was totally worthless. I was in an absolute fog the entire time.

It was during that morning I concluded this particular experiment was an obvious, utter failure. I went home at noon and started taking Fibroplex again. And I took some more that evening, so by the next morning, day number five, I was practically back to normal (for me).

So, what with all my recent doctor appointments in the last few months, and thousand and thousands of dollars of tests later, all I know is that I have a disc/nerve irregularity that appears in an MRI – and likely a case of B6 toxicity. Except: it just so happens that my major source of B6 is actually allowing me to function in this world. With a (mostly) manageable level of pain. And depression-free.

I have had another look at living on the edge. It took me only four days to start a very real journey into a living hell; thankfully I knew how to bring myself back to something resembling health.

This whole journey called life is pretty scary at times.

And, I’m still looking for answers.