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The Little C
Well, thank you for your prayers! Looks more and more like I’ve dodged a huge bullet as medical tests continue to indicate I have a very small and early gastric tumor. I’ve seen the pictures; it kind of looks like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree- just a scrawny little thing.
Blood tests do show a slightly elevated level in a marker that’s an indicator of tumor growth. But a CT scan came back completely boring with nothing irregular whatsoever. This should all mean it’s at a very, very early stage which means everything in regard to stomach cancer. Basically it’s the difference between it being curable or not- the difference between a 5% and a 75% five-year survivability rate.
Within a week or so, I’ll get a treatment plan and then get a second opinion on that plan. I’m pretty sure they will still want to dive in with knives so they can eyeball things for themselves and cut the thing out, along with a hopefully very small portion of the stomach. And while an operation of that nature has risks of its own and really, really sucks for about 7 days in the hospital and then another six weeks of recovery, it’s way more important and significant that long-term survival looks like a real good bet.
My highly amusing doctor, Thomas Butler, tells his patients that the most important part of any treatment plan is looking both ways before you cross the street. Because what good do the best and most intricate treatment plans do if you’re going to go get hit by a truck?
My son has a funny line about trucks too. Last year, I sent him info on what his life insurance benefits would be just in case I get hit by a truck. His dry, one sentence e-mail response was priceless.
Dad:
Stay away from trucks.
Love,
Charlie
The Big C
Well, this sucks. Yet, it could be so much worse! I’ve been diagnosed with what appears to be early stage stomach cancer. It sounds awful, I know, but it doesn’t feel that awful on this end.
The immediate big freak-out when a doctor suggests you have the Big C is primal: Oh jeez, how much time? So getting a pretty substantial hint that what I have is actually curable is just fine, thank you very much. I’ll get through surgery, maybe a little chemo, have a real crappy 6 to 8 weeks and then get on with it.
That’s the plan anyway, though no one ever knows what unintended crap lies out there. For example, my very excellent doctor suggests there is a possibility that treatment for a cancer I beat 14 years ago, may be the culprit today. I got a lot of radiation for a bout with testicular cancer back in 1999. The tiny little, 2cm tumor currently residing in my tummy may be the price paid for a cure nearly two decades ago.
But fight, I must! I really do love life a lot.
Unlike Japan, by the way, stomach cancer sufferers in the United States don’t get diagnosed until its too late most of the time. In Japan, stomach cancer is more prevalent so they screen the general population and nip the cancers in the bud as soon as the first signs show up. Some Japanese surgeons are so talented, experienced and meticulous that they can narrow in on and remove specific numbers of tiny, individual lymph nodes without damaging surrounding areas. They are the rock stars of the kind of gastric surgery I’m facing here.
Fortunately and ironically, I had an operation just last Fall for a perforated ulcer that introduced me to the wonderful world of intubation, liquid diets (terrific for weight loss) and Dilaudid (best pain killer ever). When they did an endoscopy to check things out a few months later, they found that little 2cm bump. Just like the Japanese would do in a regular screening.
So if we’re keeping score here, I get radiation treatment for a cancer I beat 14 years ago and it turns out to have potentially given me a cancer that was found last week because I was lucky enough to have developed an ulcer that nearly killed me last year. I knew God had a sense of humor- but that’s kind of dark even by Tim Burton standards.
Anyway, the only thing keeping me from taking a trip to Tokyo is Georgetown University’s Vince Lombardi Cancer Center and Dr. Thomas Butler, my kind, funny, smart, wise physician with the Virginia Cancer Specialists group. I trust these guys to fix me up in a way that preserves both my dignity and my health. They’re smart and they get it.
Let’s do this.
The Pope and Humble Ways of Getting to Work
I like it that New York City Mayor, Mike Bloomberg, rides the subway. And I like that the new Pope when he was a Cardinal working in Buenos Aires, Argentina, rode the bus.
I like it that I don’t have a car and that I have to hoof it to the metro and then to work and back everyday. I gave my car to my son when I moved to Manhattan years ago and kept it up when I moved back to Washington. I haven’t missed it. And it forces me to walk a lot.
Cars are great. I rent them when I really need them. Limos are cool. I have a service I use for special occasions. Not at all judgmental about this but there’s something leveling about public transportation.
I discovered this wonderful blog post on Andrew Sullivan’s web site today. It’s from Judith O’Reilly, a former British journalist and now author/blogger:
Why did I feel I had to ride this bus this morning? Because I wanted to know why a cardinal did not ride in a leather-seated, tinted-windowed limo though the streets of Buenos Aires, but chose instead to travel among the faithful and less-than-faithful, bumping and swaying, the wheels on the bus going round and round. What did Jorge Mario Bergoglio get from those bus-rides around the city? Stories? Comfort? Warmth? An understanding what it is to work hard, to be tired, to be lonely, to have to stand when you want to sit, to know you are going home or going far away? Maybe too, I wanted to get on the bus, any bus, because we are on our own journeys and right now at least so far as faith goes, I don’t know where I am heading. Maybe, I thought, if I catch a bus like a Pope, I’ll arrive at a destination called Faith.
Isn’t that lovely?
The Week Justin Bieber Turned into a Word I Can’t Use in a Headline
(Photo courtesy Celebuzz.com)
Other than Mila Kunis and Jennifer Lawrence, I hate celebrities. I take pride in not recognizing their names or even being aware of their existence. My ignorance about them defeats their unending need for attention. But this Bieber kid has sent my celebrity-hatred into overdrive.
First, the little jerk tweets endlessly about his upcoming birthday. Who does that? Then when his birthday arrives he makes a big deal about going out shirtless to clubs where he knows he’s going to be assaulted by underage girls. He wears this expression that says, “God, I hate being so loved like this.”
He gets kicked out of a club or arrives and leaves quickly or something after getting into a dispute with bouncers and tweets: “Worst Birthday Ever.” He later deletes the tweet after, I presume, his agent or his nanny told him he was coming off like a spoiled, 1st world brat.
Then he’s 2 hours late for a London concert, royally angering thousands of parents who paid good money to get their 8-year old daughters there and, hopefully out in time to catch a train and to bed before school the next day. Bieber claims technical problems caused the delay, but security guards say he was late playing video games.
Then in an apparent bid to win sympathy he gets short of breath or something at another concert and has to take a brief break while a rep takes to the stage to say that even though Bieber should be going to a hospital, he’s going to bravely finish the concert. Which he does- then checks into a hospital, taking up a bed normally reserved for people who are actually sick- then instagrams a picture of himself without his shirt on in said hospital bed.
Then as he walks from a hotel to a limo, he brushes against a paparazzi, who tells him to go the hell back home to the states and the young superstar pops back out of the limo and threatens to “f—ing beat the f—out of you,” while his body guards hustle him back into the car.
He is, quite simply, out of control and needs to be grounded. Or better yet, he needs to read either a history on the inevitable, pathetic decline of teen idols or a 1971 issue of Teen magazine with Bobby Sherman on the cover- and then be shown pictures of Bobby Sherman today. This, Biebes, is you at 70.
Now, for someone who hates celebrities so much, why, you might ask, would I know so much about Justin Bieber’s very bad week? Because the kid is like a slow motion car accident, that’s why. And like any other normal human being, when you see a car wreck it’s hard to turn away.
So this is me not turning away.
Remembering Brenda Box
A truly loved and appreciated colleague passed away this morning. Brenda was an editor with NPR’s Newscast unit. There wasn’t a word spoken by an anchor or an NPR correspondent that didn’t get her keen eye, and eventually her approval. I was her boss. This is the note I sent to NPR staff around the world today. The outpouring of affection has been enormous. She will live in our hearts forever.
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We are deeply saddened to announce that our beloved and respected colleague, Newscast Editor, Brenda Box, has passed away after a courageous four years dealing with pancreatic cancer. She was 58. Anyone who ever dealt with Brenda knows what a special and unique person she was; equal parts cynical and sensitive, outspoken and hilarious, brilliant and fun and warm and self-deprecating.
Correspondent, Carrie Kahn, who largely dealt with Brenda on the phone, but grew close to her anyway, put it this way in a recent note to Newscast staff: “Every time I called newscast and she answered the phone, no matter how stressed or busy she was she always had a few moments for a quick chat, great banter and that memorable laugh. Not that filing spots is not fun enough, but Brenda made it something special, personal and among friends.”
Newscast’s Korva Coleman has a further explanation of Brenda’s role in the unit: “Although you never heard her name on an NPR broadcast, she shaped what you heard. While you never heard her speak to you on the radio, she guided your understanding of events. Brenda Box was the editor every journalist dreams of, one who elicits the best from reporters and quietly removes the errors…Brenda often concluded her conversations with her trademark, “Cool beans.” That was the indication that her exacting eye had reviewed the reporter’s work and approved.”
There is no justice served remembering Brenda only in the context of her health issues in recent years. But it must be said that in this particular respect, she taught us all the true meaning of gentle grace under great adversity.
Brenda graduated with a journalism degree from Colorado State University, worked as Capitol Hill correspondent for USA Today Broadcasting/Gannett News Service, as an anchor for the UPI and NBC/Mutual radio networks, and as a reporter for West Virginia Public Radio and WTOP Radio before coming to NPR ten years ago. Outside of broadcasting she worked for the Wilderness Society, the National Wildlife Federation and served as Press Secretary for the District of Columbia’s City Administrator.
She was a long-time member of the National Association of Black Journalists, winning an NABJ Excellence award for a series on Black Pioneers. The Gannett News Service honored her work for radio coverage of the 20th anniversary of the Civil Rights March on Washington.
Brenda is survived by her husband, Steve Johnson, her daughters, Chantel and Chanel and her son, Anthony.
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By way of remembrance, the family asks that donations in Brenda’s name, be made to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, Pancan.org.
Stock Market Record! Congrats- You’re Back to Zero!
A lot of happy headlines today as the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbs to heights never before seen. I checked my retirement accounts and I am, indeed, doing nicely. But compared to what?
Compared to 5 and half years ago- we’re now back to where we started. Compared to ten years ago, stocks have averaged only a .6% increase in value. And for giddy investors there’s always this helpful MarketWatch headline: Legendary Hedge-Fund Manager: This Will End Badly.
What are the markets so exuberant about anyway? Unemployment at 8%? Adjusted for inflation, your take-home pay buys 8% less than it did in 2007. Last time we hit record highs on Wall Street your home was worth 26% more than it is today and that’s counting a recent housing rebound. Some 14 million homeowners still have property that’s worth less today than when they bought it. Mark Gongloff has all the stats in this piece in the Huffington Post.
Perhaps the markets are responding enthusiastically to that newfound spirit of compromise on Capitol Hill? Oh- that’s right, we’re still careening from one manufactured budget crisis to the next.
All these reasons for the stock market not to be happy worry me. It’s a nice fantasyland if you’re lucky enough to have a 401k or an IRA- but if you don’t- this little roller coaster ride means nothing except that a bunch of rich people are doing better than you…and even at that- they’re only standing still.
Hate to be the skunk at the garden party, as they say. And I’ll take the rally since the alternative really sucks. But careful out there…irrational exuberance has bitten us in the derriere before.
Garcia Media Life 
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