Category Archives: death

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cancer pen

A patient told me about the “cancer pen” yesterday. I promptly picturedย  Star Trek’s Bones holding his device over patients, but no, this has to touch tissue…aka a piece of you…and do a chemical evaluation. It is to be used during surgery.

Here: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-41162994

This is neat new technology… but. I can hear my sister saying, “Uh, so what about PREVENTION?”

This is technology to remove cancer after it’s already grown. And presumably metastasized. So this is stage II, stage III, stage IV cancer.

Cancer deaths are the second biggest cause of death in the US. Around 23% of yearly deaths and that does not count the people who survive cancer. At present we do not have many screening tests for cancer: pap smears continue to evolve, and now the recommendation is an HPV test or pap smear every five years AND we have a vaccine for the high risk HPV.
We can screen for colon cancer.
Mammograms for breast cancer.
The screen for prostate cancer sucks.
We can do skin checks.
The screen for lung cancer is now a low dose CT in a certain population that is high risk, that is, smokers. The recommendations have not addressed smoking marijuana.
Recommendations in the US are here: https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/.

There are lots of cancers that we don’t have screens for…. yet.

Proteomics is on the horizon. Genomics is looking at the genes, but it turns out that lots of cancers and infections and other illnesses have particular protein patterns. There is TONS of research in this area. Someday we may have protein tests: put a drop of blood or urine on it and say, “Hmmm. Looks like you have a positive test, probable lung cancer.”

That in turn creates problems. Initially we may be able to diagnose a cancer but not FIND it. Also not know how to treat it. The first big study trying to set up lung cancer screening had over 600 worrisome CT scans out of 1000. How many lung cancers did they find? Nine. And half of the nine had symptoms and could be found on chest xray by the time they did repeat CTs. Think of the anxiety of the 600 people who might have cancer and “We will repeat the CT scan in four months. Don’t worry too much.” Also there were complications from biopsying the lungs, like bleeding and pneumonia….

The best bet to avoid cancer is still living in a healthy way: don’t smoke anything, avoid addictive substances, eat good food, exercise, have friends and loved ones, work for yourself and your community, do some things you love…..

 

I took the photograph of my sister in 2011. She died of breast cancer in 2012. Her blog is here: butterfly soup.

For the Daily Prompt: strut. Struts support things: airplane wings, cars, things that move. How do we as a culture support people to live healthy lives?

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the tide going out

I am thinking about the term “white trash” and choices.

Is “white trash” a discriminatory term? A derogatory term? Is it a type of person or is it a “lifestyle choice”? Or is it a sum of choices?

A friend tells me that it is not discriminatory. Not an insult. A lifestyle. Then the friend says, “Some people would assume that I am white trash because I live in a trailer (manufactured home) and don’t own my own land. I rent.”

Would this person be white trash to you? Does it make a difference if they are male or female? Over 60? Under 30? Single? Have children? Would you feel differently about a single male parent than a single female parent? Would you feel differently if they are widowed instead of divorced?

And at what age do we become responsible?

If I am a child growing up in a household with alcoholism, verbal abuse, parents with mental health issues or grave illness or abandonment, where is the line where I become responsible for myself?

I surveyed my smokers for years, what age did you start? The men mostly said age 9. There was more cultural pressure on women, but the youngest started at 11 or 12. And then the horrific stories, where the parent is offering whiskey to a child under 10. My sister and I wandered around peoples’ houses in the dark when we were under ten. She was three years younger. I was a kid who did not trust adults and was careful. Scared. So we did not get into drugs or alcohol and I hated my father’s unfiltered camels. My parents would not touch illegal drugs, thankfully. I took care of my sister, but we were entirely unsupervised in barns and houses and outside….

I think that our teens are making choices at far younger ages than parents want to admit. I see parents check out when the child is fourteen or even younger. Teens who are nearly living at friends. Teens who already seem lost. And sometimes the parent is wrapped up in a divorce or a parent is sick or dying or a parent is in jail or abandons the family.

What age did you make choices? Did you make good ones? And is white trash hate speech? If you made bad choices, were you able to change later on?

What is the line between free speech and hate speech? And what is the line between love and enabling?

I am still searching….


Over the Rhine: Fool and Let it fall

For the Daily Prompt: rhyme. No, it doesn’t rhyme. But I am thinking of the phrase: no rhyme or reason….

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daily

This is for photrablogger’s Mundane Monday 124.

Just my current journal and a pen and a coffee pot. But I am thinking of the people flooded in Houston and how they would like just a clean counter and a dry journal and a coffee pot with electricity.

Our house was flooded when my family first moved to Alexandria, Virginia. We were not in danger, but the water backed up and started pouring into our basement, full of boxes of books. First we rescued my mother’s etching press engine. It was so heavy we could barely get it up the stairs. Then boxes and boxes of books. I was fourteen and the water was cold and dirty and reached to the tops of my thighs.

We pulled everything we could upstairs and then emptied boxes. We had wet books everywhere and threw tons away.

We sat on the porch. The water was six inches deep in the middle of the road. The buses still ran, and a wave would come lap our steps every time one went by.

Prayers for the flooded people in Texas and the people in dire straights everywhere.

I am deeply grateful for the mundane…

 

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moon in morning

For the weekly Photo Prompt: Ohh, Shiny!

But, you say, it isn’t shiny.

No, it isn’t. Because even shiny things today are not distracting me from my grief about our country, the lack of ethical morals in our government and twitterpated tweets going out daily.

And here is the moon watching as the sun rises and light and warmth fall over the earth. The mood matches mine: quiet and still thinking of the dark and of love and of hatred and of grief.

Moon in mourning.

 

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Forgiveness 2

I wrote this poem in 2009 when I was struggling with forgiveness and wanting to forgive. How do we forgive when someone does not apologize? When they do not explain nor listen to your hurt and grief? Yet forgiveness is internal in each of us. The external is reconciliation and that requires listening from both sides.

Forgiveness

I want to forgive something
Someone
In fact a group
Something that hurt a lot
I’ve tried logic
I tell myself
“It was an expression of concern”

My heart doesn’t agree
It is sullen
Immobile and grumpy
It whispers
“They have not apologized”
It whispers
“When people say you’re crazy
It could be a joke
An expression of concern
It wasn’t
It was a palm held out
At arm’s length
To distance me.”

My head argues
“That’s what it felt like to you.
You don’t know their intentions.”

I want to write
A poem of forgiveness
Hoping my heart will follow

My conscious doesn’t write my poems
My conscious wrestles with an idea
The poem comes out of this struggle
I look at the poem I’ve written
I think,
“That is what I would like
my conscious heart to feel.”
My poem is often more generous
than my conscious feels

My poems are not mine
They are a gift
From the unconscious
It is much larger
Than the small conscious me
I dream of feeling envy
I climb into a bathtub
And transform myself
To battle a trickster
We are transported
To the bottom of the ocean

In the ocean
The trickster and I are one
It is unlimited
It is not my unconscious
There is no separation
It is all unconscious

I did not think
A poem would give forgiveness
But pain drove me
Into the sea
I am connected
You gave me these pearls
Thank you

 

I am submitting this to the Daily Prompt: jiffy. I wish this could happen in a jiffy…. but it is slow….

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halo stealthie

In the early morning in Wisconsin, I saw a halo… I am sending the halo to all the people who stood and stand up against white supremicism. I am sending the halo to all people, all colors, all genders. And we couldn’t see the halo unless the shadow were present, could we? There is no light without contrasting dark and we must love both the shadow and the light. I am not ok with white supremicism. Please, send this halo to those who stand up for love and equality and against discrimination.