I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone -- all 2,000 of you -- for donating the plasma that went into formulating the IVIG treatments I received last week at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center over in Dartmouth.
I don't know any of you personally, but I'll tell you this: please know that the minute quantities of immunoglobulin each of you contributed to create the concoction they dripped into my vein has done Wonders in boosting my body's abilities to fight infections and diseases.
You may also be pleased to know the IVIG has greatly ameliorated the arthritis which has infested my neck and right shoulder for the past 10 years.
Doctors Liz and Trevor suggested I might experience some sniffles and / or flu-like symptoms as a result of IVIG. But I'm here to tell you there are no such side effects -- none.
Liz mentioned I might not even need a flu shot this winter, thanks to the IVIG and you.
To make IVIG requires about 2,000 blood and plasma donors to yield 1,000 CCs of serum. From what I can make out of it, the pharmaceutical lab spins the specimens inside a centrifuge to separate the immunoglobin from the other blood components.
When it's transferred into a glass bottle -- one which bears an uncanny resemblance to an upside-down Absolut Vodka bottle -- IVIG looks like Michelob Ultralite floating around in there. It even has a beer-like head.
In this state, the lab freezes the IVIG solid until a wimp-metaphysician such as I needs it.
It takes about ten hours over two session days for the nurses to drain IVIG into the vein. The health pros like to do it slowly because a human body can generate several pretty funky reactions if -- and only if -- the serum's collective A-B-O blood factors don't match those of the recipient's.
The probability of an adverse reaction is in the realm of one-tenth of one percent -- but no one wants to take any chances by speeding up the process. As The Boss once sang, that's OK by me.
(Nerd Alert: IVIG was developed in the mid-1950s to treat wounded and returning Korean War vets. They apparently caught several strange strains of East Asian immune system-compromising "bugs" while fighting on the Peninsula, strains that were heretofore unknown to North American medicine. IVIG then went on to be used as a front-line treatment, with dramatic efficacy, during the HIV/AIDS Epidemic. From there, it's now employed for treating all types of immune-compromising illnesses and blood disorders. Liz and Trevor talked me into getting IVIG to boost my blood counts which were crashed during chemotherapy for Non-Hotchkins Lymphoma. End of Nerd Alert.)
Anyway ..
And so it came to pass that, right about the Eighth Hour of treatment, I realized that IVIG was a much different form of chemo than all the others I've received.
First and foremost, IVIG wasn't Kicking My Ass like the others -- no bouts of Nausea, no overwhelming Fatigue, no dense Chemical Fogs.
Second, if I had owned a mule team and a plow, I felt as though I could have gone out to the North Forty and tackled some serious farm work.
Third-- and this is the best part -- for the first time in three years, my mind began wandering to some rather distant, pleasant thoughts about the succulent tastes of Benthic Organisms.
It happened to be around dinner-time. I had, after all, to drive back home from Hanover to Rochester, and there just happened to be a Clam Shack along the way.
How Tozier's Clam Emporium got itself off the ground, within the heart of the Green Mountains just west of Bethel, VT, 200 miles from the nearest New England Coast, might be fertile grist for one of my future metaphysicial literary quests.
For the moment, I'll just say this: Tozier's Clam Emporium far exceeded my expectations.
I pulled into the gravel driveway, starving, about an hour after the nurses patched me up. The place didn't appear to be all that busy -- I attributed this to the fact that a downpour recently worked its way through the Bethel area: Ergo, the locals were drying off and had yet to decide on their own dinner plans.
So a wonderfully chippy high-schooler greeted me at the slide window and took my order: a pint of Whole-Belly Clams, a half-pint of Fried Oysters, and a medium-size order of Onion Rings. And, oh yes, I'd like a large Coke with that, please.
She handed me a blue Poker Chip with the number "37" etched onto it.
"I'll call you when your order is ready, sir."
"I don't think the chip is really necessary, Miss. I appear to be the only one here," I said.
I guess she had to follow Procedures and it was my responsibility to Play The Game. Anyway, I settled up: this feast set me back $15.
It took less than ten minutes for my new friend to call "Number 37 is ready!"
So I returned to the sliding window.
There they were! Clams and oysters and onion rings. Deep-fried, hot, crumb golden, crispy. Steaming in their Chinese-style take-out containers.
"Would you like some tarter sauce?," she asked.
I answered: "Give me four, if you don't mind."
For the next 25 minutes, I thought I had died and gone to Heaven.
Every bite of clam and oyster revealed a paradox of fresh, oceanic, sweet saltiness which dissolved, as if by magic, in my mouth to tickle my taste buds and to make me One with the Sea.
I employed bites of the succulent onion rings to adjust the flavor receptors within my palate. Some folks pay a C-Note for a bottle of Red to accomplish the same cleansing effect when they dine on Pheasant Under Glass, or Beef Wellington.
I prefer the Onion Ring method, but that's just me...
Plus there was absolutely no need for tarter sauce here. The condiment just would have gotten in the way to ruin the whole effect.
POSTSCRIPT: Was it the IVIG that made me so perky? Or was it the clams and / or the oysters? Or was it a combination of all three?
I shall discuss this matter with Liz and Trevor when I see them later this week...
Monday, August 1, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
The Buckeye and The Eph
I needed no infusion of coffee the other morning for my trip over to the Norris Cotton Cancer Research Center at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Regional Medical Center.
Cool, crisp, sweet Green Mountain air did the trick to clear my head and excite my senses.
The night before, my brother, bless him, tried to load me up with a zillion questions for my first Prayer Session with Dr. Liz and Dr. Trevor. But whatever advice and concern he expressed through his line of reasoning got lost somewhere in the 40 minutes that it took me to drive from my place in Rochester, VT to Hanover, NH.
You'll have to forgive me, Bill, but I just became too entranced by the magic show offered to me on this particular morning.
In Vermont, that cool, crisp, clean mountain air I mentioned earlier creeps down from the summits in the pre-dawn hours and settles as dense fog, like an expertly-applied egg-white layer of chiffon, into the entire length of the White River Valley.
The Sun's first infusion of warmth kisses the fog's uppermost layer and then and only then, like the thinnest and purest and whitest of warming gossamer, layers upon layers slink back into the mountains, like a cat.
This spectacular revealed itself, before me as I drove through the Valley, as if it were a gift created just for me--and for me alone. If I had just one more day to live, this would be its High Point.
Two other points, if I may: I had all the major roads and highways virtually to myself on this particular morning until a couple of white-tailed deer slowed me down outside of Bethel. I also had to put on the brakes north of Harford to let a moose cross the interstate.
What compelled me to get on the road at so early an hour? The answer is simple: experience.
I learned the Hard Way, during my War against Non-Hotchkins Lymphoma -- and from my experiences with schedules for consultations and treatments in Florida -- that, if you book an appointment in the PM hours, you'll be twiddling your thumbs for an hour or three while the doctors scramble to catch up with their appointments.
Tip the the Rookies: best to book the first available appointment of the practitioner's day -- the earlier, the better.
And so it happened that Dr. Liz and Dr. Trevor had an 8 AM slot open on my appointed day, and I gladly took it. The available literature asserts that Liz is one of the leading medical specialists in the USA who knows how to treat (a) lymphoma, and (b) chemo-caused blood disorders.
Trevor is a Fellow at Norris Cotton who waited several years for the opportunity to study with Liz. He put his own internal medical practice on ice for three years for the honor and privilege of working with her and the rest of her extremely talented team.
In short, Liz and Trevor are exactly the people I need in my life at this particular point in time.
(My 7 AM arrival meant I would have to present myself to "The Vampires" at that un-Godly hour for the prerequisite Blood work, but I had no problem with that because Liz and Trevor would undoubtedly have my lab results in their hands by the time we hooked up.)
Before I continue on-and-on about my new medical team, I am reminded of the fact that my fellow metaphysicians would ban me from practice for life if I failed to mention something about the Dartmouth-Hitchcock campus.
In 20 words or less, the hospital / medical school complex is designed to make you feel better even before you walk through its doors.
The openness and airiness of the atria gave me the sense that I had entered an ultra-modern library, or art museum. I also sensed that the architects and the builders went far, far out of their way to create a 1.8 million square foot, un-hospital-like complex which they deftly designed to be hidden -- unobtrusiveness would probably be a better concept to describe it -- within the rocky and rolling and oak-laden foothills of the White Mountains.
Now that I have satisfied my fellow Metaphysicians, let's get back to the Medical Physicians...
Dr. Liz and Dr. Trevor had a complete mastery of my medical condition, plus she had an ability to explain what is happening to me, on the lymphatic front, in both highly-scientific terms, and in ways a nine-year old would easily comprehend.
We spent over an hour together in a casual but focused conversation, getting to know one another and going over lab results, biopsies, medical notes from my Florida oncologist, and filling in some gaps in my records. Then, the time arrived for them to do most of the talking.
Let's start with the Boss:
Yes, Liz said, the lymphoma was under control -- but to get there, the chemo crashed my body's ability to make other components of my blood. Yes, she added, matters were serious, and no, my condition wasn't life-threatening -- yet.
Yes, she said, the team at Norris Cotton could help me -- and Trevor would be my Main Man in the quest to restore my health to full vitality.
I noticed that Trevor absorbed every one of Liz' words as though he was listening to the Dalai Lama. And for her part, Liz left it all up to Trevor to translate her Common Man explanation to me, regarding what was going to happen next, into some form of medical-ese.
This exercise proved to be Dr. Trevor's strong suit. Except for a snippet here and there, the clinical explanations he offered me soared way over my head. So he downshifted intellectually to terms a high school senior might grasp.
Yes, he explained, there were new and improved forms of chemotherapy that could goose my overall blood counts -- mentioning IVIG as the chief ingredient. (Don't ask me what IVIG is: I have a hard time understanding that Rituxin, the main line of treatment for lymphoma, is made out of Rat Spleen.)
Fact is: I trust these folks, believe in them, and have faith in their recommendations.
Gentleman and metaphysician that I am, I would never inquire about a woman's age. But snoop that I am, and if I had to guess, I'd say she's in her mid-to-late 40s. As the medical director of Norris Cotton, she is clearly at or near the summit of her profession.
She graduated from Ohio State University. I have the distinct impression that, while 106,000 other Buckeyes and their faithful crammed the football stadium, Liz was in the lab, studying and learning the mysteries and secrets and the wonders of bone marrow.
I also have a feeling that she wore red platforms and pink anklets with lace fringes even back then.
Trevor got his sheepskin from Williams College -- nicknamed "The Ephs" for some obscure reason ( I think it has something to do with a "cow") and continues the preppy tradition of wearing cotton tattersall button down shirts, sailboat ties, penny loafers, and Docker slacks.
If he hadn't gone off to medical school, I have this distinct impression he might have hooked up with either the CIA or a Think Tank, to research, develop and then guide, using a joystick, a robotic Fly, carrying several ounces of Plastique, up the nostril of an Islamic terrorist.
Either that, or he would have been off to the World of Investment Banking.
Anyway, Dr. Liz and Dr. Trevor, from Dartmouth-Hitchcock's Norris Cotton Cancer Center, are on my Team now.
And I feel as though I am One Lucky Duck.
Cool, crisp, sweet Green Mountain air did the trick to clear my head and excite my senses.
The night before, my brother, bless him, tried to load me up with a zillion questions for my first Prayer Session with Dr. Liz and Dr. Trevor. But whatever advice and concern he expressed through his line of reasoning got lost somewhere in the 40 minutes that it took me to drive from my place in Rochester, VT to Hanover, NH.
You'll have to forgive me, Bill, but I just became too entranced by the magic show offered to me on this particular morning.
In Vermont, that cool, crisp, clean mountain air I mentioned earlier creeps down from the summits in the pre-dawn hours and settles as dense fog, like an expertly-applied egg-white layer of chiffon, into the entire length of the White River Valley.
The Sun's first infusion of warmth kisses the fog's uppermost layer and then and only then, like the thinnest and purest and whitest of warming gossamer, layers upon layers slink back into the mountains, like a cat.
This spectacular revealed itself, before me as I drove through the Valley, as if it were a gift created just for me--and for me alone. If I had just one more day to live, this would be its High Point.
Two other points, if I may: I had all the major roads and highways virtually to myself on this particular morning until a couple of white-tailed deer slowed me down outside of Bethel. I also had to put on the brakes north of Harford to let a moose cross the interstate.
What compelled me to get on the road at so early an hour? The answer is simple: experience.
I learned the Hard Way, during my War against Non-Hotchkins Lymphoma -- and from my experiences with schedules for consultations and treatments in Florida -- that, if you book an appointment in the PM hours, you'll be twiddling your thumbs for an hour or three while the doctors scramble to catch up with their appointments.
Tip the the Rookies: best to book the first available appointment of the practitioner's day -- the earlier, the better.
And so it happened that Dr. Liz and Dr. Trevor had an 8 AM slot open on my appointed day, and I gladly took it. The available literature asserts that Liz is one of the leading medical specialists in the USA who knows how to treat (a) lymphoma, and (b) chemo-caused blood disorders.
Trevor is a Fellow at Norris Cotton who waited several years for the opportunity to study with Liz. He put his own internal medical practice on ice for three years for the honor and privilege of working with her and the rest of her extremely talented team.
In short, Liz and Trevor are exactly the people I need in my life at this particular point in time.
(My 7 AM arrival meant I would have to present myself to "The Vampires" at that un-Godly hour for the prerequisite Blood work, but I had no problem with that because Liz and Trevor would undoubtedly have my lab results in their hands by the time we hooked up.)
Before I continue on-and-on about my new medical team, I am reminded of the fact that my fellow metaphysicians would ban me from practice for life if I failed to mention something about the Dartmouth-Hitchcock campus.
In 20 words or less, the hospital / medical school complex is designed to make you feel better even before you walk through its doors.
The openness and airiness of the atria gave me the sense that I had entered an ultra-modern library, or art museum. I also sensed that the architects and the builders went far, far out of their way to create a 1.8 million square foot, un-hospital-like complex which they deftly designed to be hidden -- unobtrusiveness would probably be a better concept to describe it -- within the rocky and rolling and oak-laden foothills of the White Mountains.
Now that I have satisfied my fellow Metaphysicians, let's get back to the Medical Physicians...
Dr. Liz and Dr. Trevor had a complete mastery of my medical condition, plus she had an ability to explain what is happening to me, on the lymphatic front, in both highly-scientific terms, and in ways a nine-year old would easily comprehend.
We spent over an hour together in a casual but focused conversation, getting to know one another and going over lab results, biopsies, medical notes from my Florida oncologist, and filling in some gaps in my records. Then, the time arrived for them to do most of the talking.
Let's start with the Boss:
Yes, Liz said, the lymphoma was under control -- but to get there, the chemo crashed my body's ability to make other components of my blood. Yes, she added, matters were serious, and no, my condition wasn't life-threatening -- yet.
Yes, she said, the team at Norris Cotton could help me -- and Trevor would be my Main Man in the quest to restore my health to full vitality.
I noticed that Trevor absorbed every one of Liz' words as though he was listening to the Dalai Lama. And for her part, Liz left it all up to Trevor to translate her Common Man explanation to me, regarding what was going to happen next, into some form of medical-ese.
This exercise proved to be Dr. Trevor's strong suit. Except for a snippet here and there, the clinical explanations he offered me soared way over my head. So he downshifted intellectually to terms a high school senior might grasp.
Yes, he explained, there were new and improved forms of chemotherapy that could goose my overall blood counts -- mentioning IVIG as the chief ingredient. (Don't ask me what IVIG is: I have a hard time understanding that Rituxin, the main line of treatment for lymphoma, is made out of Rat Spleen.)
Fact is: I trust these folks, believe in them, and have faith in their recommendations.
Gentleman and metaphysician that I am, I would never inquire about a woman's age. But snoop that I am, and if I had to guess, I'd say she's in her mid-to-late 40s. As the medical director of Norris Cotton, she is clearly at or near the summit of her profession.
She graduated from Ohio State University. I have the distinct impression that, while 106,000 other Buckeyes and their faithful crammed the football stadium, Liz was in the lab, studying and learning the mysteries and secrets and the wonders of bone marrow.
I also have a feeling that she wore red platforms and pink anklets with lace fringes even back then.
Trevor got his sheepskin from Williams College -- nicknamed "The Ephs" for some obscure reason ( I think it has something to do with a "cow") and continues the preppy tradition of wearing cotton tattersall button down shirts, sailboat ties, penny loafers, and Docker slacks.
If he hadn't gone off to medical school, I have this distinct impression he might have hooked up with either the CIA or a Think Tank, to research, develop and then guide, using a joystick, a robotic Fly, carrying several ounces of Plastique, up the nostril of an Islamic terrorist.
Either that, or he would have been off to the World of Investment Banking.
Anyway, Dr. Liz and Dr. Trevor, from Dartmouth-Hitchcock's Norris Cotton Cancer Center, are on my Team now.
And I feel as though I am One Lucky Duck.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Stunned Dismayed, and Violated
On a recent late Saturday afternoon, I placed a temporary "good-bye & farewell" kiss on my wonderful wife, Carol's smackers, and bid her a safe flight back to Florida from the Burlington International Airport.
Before "The Kiss," I helped her with the luggage and then we lingered, watching the big jet as it taxied up to the departure gate. Time together was running very, very short, so we tabled the pro-forma generalities and spoke from our hearts and our mutual love, and our hope that my time and labor in establishing our Vermont Farm would progress safely and steadily despite her absence.
We also shared this article of faith: that I would procure rapid improvement in my health, over at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center at Dartmouth, under the wisdom, the arts, the skills and the watchful eyes of Doctor Liz and Doctor Trevor.
Within the intimacy of these precious moments, neither Carol nor I could possibly have been able to foresee, or comprehend, the Nightmare that awaited us both upon her return to our house in Cape Coral, Florida.
Before I wade into the substance of what's to follow, allow me to state for the record that our Florida hacienda reposes, like an oasis, within a setting framed by Ericha palms, Sea Grape, bamboo, mango and avocado, shell-packed walkways, and numerous floral nooks that suggest, in a landscaping sense, what one would expect to find in Coconut Grove.
Our landscaping scheme contained three goals: (a) to provide the property with privacy; (b) to create as much shade as possible and, thus, gain relief from the Florida heat; and (c) reduce yard maintenance to its minimum.
What I completely failed to calculate, however, was this:
In securing our privacy from passersby on the street, and from snoopy neighbors, I created the perfect burglar's screen. Anyone with an intent to invade our property could pull off their crime with minimal chance of being caught by someone observing their activities from the street.
And so it happened, after the cabbie dropped Carol off at the foot of the driveway just after midnight, that she opened the front door to discover that our home had, indeed, been burglarized and ransacked.
Panic-driven to hysterical instincts, Carol hit the magic numbers of "911." A pair of police cruisers screamed out their arrival in a matter of minutes. Another patrol car pulled into the driveway -- this one driven by a sergeant-on-duty who immediately radioed ahead for the fingerprint and forensic team.
Using flashlights for some inexplicable reason, the cops "swept" the interior before allowing Carol to enter our house. When she turned on the lights, she was confronted, after her long and arduous travel day, by the Mother-Of-All Home Trashings.
It was precisely at that moment in time when she called me to deliver the top-side, Bird's Eye Low-Down regarding what had happened to us.
She felt as though she had been raped: I, too, felt violated to that extent. I also felt a wave of anger surging within me -- contemporaneous with feelings of utter helplessness due to the absolute fact that about 1,700 miles now stood between us. There was just little, if anything, I could do to comfort her or to support her except, in some small, insignificant measure, to commiserate about our mutual sense of violation and imminent loss.
The duty sergeant asked Carol to cut our conversation short. He had some questions ...
Meanwhile, as Carol and I were to discover, every drawer was yanked open and then dumped onto the tiles and carpets in the perps' mission to steal any and all articles of value.
Jewelry boxes were rifled through, and then smashed to the floor. The burglars walked off with just about every piece of gold, diamond, and silver that we prized -- much of which had been heirlooms, passed down from her parents and mine.
Carol especially treasured three pieces of her jewelry: her Sterling silver charm bracelet she had worn since she was a teen, a 14-carat gold snowflake necklace I had given her as an anniversary gift some years ago, and a faux silver necklace of an alpaca's head which she bought at an Alpaca Breeders' Show in North Carolina.
The perps even took their sweet time converting our meticulously neat, walk-in closet into a rag bin. They found our Hurricane Evacuation Safe and jimmied the lock. They then walked away with a very substantial amount of Greenbacks.
(I have to thank them, however, for not pissing on the deeds, the birth certificates, Social Security Cards, insurance policies, wills, and other important documents when they left those items strewn all over the closet floor.)
The cops and the forensic team departed after spending two over hours doing their thing in the house. By then, Carol called me back to say that she was on Page Four of her hand-written list of missing inventory.
Despite all of the forensic and investigative tools available to modern Law Enforcement, the duty sergeant and the zone corporal mentioned that the odds of regaining our heisted possessions were, in all probability, less than 10,000 to 1. The most valuable stuff, made of gold and silver, was probably melted down already in either Tampa or in Miami.
More probably than not, the thieves are part of an out-of-town ring who thrive on breaking into seasonal residences. One tell-tale clue: the perps who broke into our hacienda successfully bypassed a security system without triggering any alarms.
On the remote possibility this crime was committed by a local cat burglar / junkie in need of a fix, the sergeant suggested Carol might want to cruise past the glass display cases residing within a few of the city's Pawn Shops. Maybe a few of our items had been hocked ...
As to the matter of who committed this particular crime, the police said they'd check out the Usual Suspects, and perhaps ask a few of their informants in-town if they heard anything.
It goes without saying that, to a violated woman such as Carol, and to an angry and frustrated alpaca-herding metaphysician such as I -- one who is lymphoma-ridden and who has blood counts so low that even the mosquitoes ignore me -- these were not the kind of statements from the police that we wanted to hear, under the circumstances.
In a matter of days, Carol calmed down a bit. She informed me that she has acquired the skill of sleeping with an eye open, with a baseball bat next to the bed stand to up the ante for any future burglar.
I, contemporaneously, have been developing a theory concerning the perp or perps who committed this crime.
As I now clearly recall, I mentioned to the adolescent daughter of one of my neighbor that I was heading North, to Vermont. This innocent and casual exchange occurred while we were standing in-line at the local convenience store: she was buying a Slurpee and I was acquiring a 12-pack of beer.
I didn't provide her with any details, that is, that I was seeking the best possible medical treatments offered at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, which happens to be one of the world's best treatment centers for blood and bone marrow disorders caused by chemotherapy.
I felt then, as I do now, that such information is far and away and above and beyond a 12-year old's abilities to understand.
The girl wished me well, and said that she'd tell her dad about it. Perhaps her dad could keep an eye on things, especially if Carol travelled to Vermont to stay with me? Perhaps she could watch the cats?
As to her second question, I said that wouldn't be necessary because the cats were going to Vermont with me. As to her first question, in retrospect, I should have sworn her to secrecy.
Here's why: It ultimately occurred to me that, for several years, I had been aware that this particular dad -- let's call him Blaine -- had occasionally strolled on the other side of the street as far as the law was concerned.
It is generally well-known that Blaine -- a Hard-Luck Red Neck if there was ever one -- had been picked up for petty theft a few years ago, did some time at the County Lockup, and had been in-and-out of the Can ever since for assault on his ex-girlfriend and for failure to pay child support.
Blaine hasn't held any kind of meaningful job in seven years. A bug extermination shop let him go when the Economy went South, and before that, he lost his job with the City Public Works Dept. when he flunked a random drug test.
Blaine's hootch -- which makes Dog Patch look like Beverley Hills -- is a magnate for several of his pals, all equally shady types who come and go at every conceivable hour of the day and night.
Here's my hypothesis: the girl told her dad that Carol and I would be away for awhile, and Blaine, in turn, shared the information with one or more of his associates.
Factoid: as everyone with a pulse knows, the State of Florida is infested with more cat burglars, petty thieves, second-story men / women, con artists, pick-pockets, junkies and "fences," per square foot, than any other place on this Planet.
Ergo: If Blaine blabbed to one of his associates about my particular situation, the odds of whetting the nefarious interests of one (or more) of his crew would be astronomic in favor of a break-in at our residence.
As I mentioned, this is just a theory...
It came to pass that Carol took the duty sergeant's advice. She popped in on a pawn shop located less than a quarter-mile from our place -- and to her utter shock, she saw her faux silver alpaca necklace in the display case.
Trembling, Carol took her exit and immediately called the police department. Within five minutes, Sgt. Gil, one of the city's best detectives, arrived on the scene.
Carol remained silent while Det. Sgt. Gill asked the questions:
Gil: Where did the necklace come from?
Pawnbroker: I had this in the case for eight months!
Gil: Show me the paperwork.
Pawnbroker: I don't have it. I lost it or misplaced it!
Gil: You will lose your license if you fail to produce the paperwork.
Pawnbroker: How does she know it's hers? It could have been dropped by anybody?
Gil: She owns six alpacas, owns an alpaca fiber business, and she has an alpaca sign on the door of her car.
Turns out that Det. Sgt. Gil folded the pawnbroker at that point like a cheap suitcase. It also turned out that the perp tendered the necklace to the pawnbroker on July 6th -- not eight months ago as the pawnbroker initially stated.
While the sergeant continued to grill the pawnbroker, Carol also found our missing Konica 35 MM camera and lenses locked within another display case. No paperwork.
If the name given by the person who pawned our possessions holds up, the police have their first solid lead in the case. In any event, the pawnbroker now finds myself in a Crap-Storm for a variety of legal reasons, to wit: (a) accepting stolen property; (b) failure to keep accurate and timely records; (c) giving false and misleading statements to the police.
The pawnbroker is obviously a Fence and I am wondering how Det. Sgt. Gill will leverage all of this to our benefit?
As this tale unfolds, there are some obvious lessons that come to my mind.
First, it's never a good idea to share travel plans with anyone other than a person whom you really, really trust. As in my case, you'll never know how others will use this information.
Second, tell your local police department when you'll be out-of-town for an extended period of time. I didn't know this, but most if not all police departments will increase their neighborhood patrols in your area if they are aware you'll be on vacation. They will do this as part of their community service component.
Third, make a list of all your possessions with a value in excess of $50 and then either photograph them individually, or make record of them on a digital or video camera. It will be of immense value if you retain and file all jewelry receipts. Make a separate list of the serial numbers of all electronic and power equipment. When compiled, place these lists in your safe deposit box.
Fourth, never rely solely on your home security system to protect you or your possessions. As we learned (the hard way) these types of systems can be bypassed and/ or defeated by perps. Back up your security by installing a sound system with sirens or horns in the eardrum-shattering 280-decibel range. A 500 decibel siren, mounted exteriorially, can alert neighbors and police as far as a half-mile away.
Fifth, never -- ever -- assign guilt to yourself in the event of a home invasion. Any perp, when motivated, will break through even the best of systems. Our job is simple: to make it very, very hard for them to succeed.
Meanwhile, Carol will continue to cruise the pawn shops and remain in touch with the police until we can resolve this very revolting development.
Here's hoping that Det. Sgt. Gil et.al. nail the thieves -- and let's see where my theory leads ...
Before "The Kiss," I helped her with the luggage and then we lingered, watching the big jet as it taxied up to the departure gate. Time together was running very, very short, so we tabled the pro-forma generalities and spoke from our hearts and our mutual love, and our hope that my time and labor in establishing our Vermont Farm would progress safely and steadily despite her absence.
We also shared this article of faith: that I would procure rapid improvement in my health, over at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center at Dartmouth, under the wisdom, the arts, the skills and the watchful eyes of Doctor Liz and Doctor Trevor.
Within the intimacy of these precious moments, neither Carol nor I could possibly have been able to foresee, or comprehend, the Nightmare that awaited us both upon her return to our house in Cape Coral, Florida.
Before I wade into the substance of what's to follow, allow me to state for the record that our Florida hacienda reposes, like an oasis, within a setting framed by Ericha palms, Sea Grape, bamboo, mango and avocado, shell-packed walkways, and numerous floral nooks that suggest, in a landscaping sense, what one would expect to find in Coconut Grove.
Our landscaping scheme contained three goals: (a) to provide the property with privacy; (b) to create as much shade as possible and, thus, gain relief from the Florida heat; and (c) reduce yard maintenance to its minimum.
What I completely failed to calculate, however, was this:
In securing our privacy from passersby on the street, and from snoopy neighbors, I created the perfect burglar's screen. Anyone with an intent to invade our property could pull off their crime with minimal chance of being caught by someone observing their activities from the street.
And so it happened, after the cabbie dropped Carol off at the foot of the driveway just after midnight, that she opened the front door to discover that our home had, indeed, been burglarized and ransacked.
Panic-driven to hysterical instincts, Carol hit the magic numbers of "911." A pair of police cruisers screamed out their arrival in a matter of minutes. Another patrol car pulled into the driveway -- this one driven by a sergeant-on-duty who immediately radioed ahead for the fingerprint and forensic team.
Using flashlights for some inexplicable reason, the cops "swept" the interior before allowing Carol to enter our house. When she turned on the lights, she was confronted, after her long and arduous travel day, by the Mother-Of-All Home Trashings.
It was precisely at that moment in time when she called me to deliver the top-side, Bird's Eye Low-Down regarding what had happened to us.
She felt as though she had been raped: I, too, felt violated to that extent. I also felt a wave of anger surging within me -- contemporaneous with feelings of utter helplessness due to the absolute fact that about 1,700 miles now stood between us. There was just little, if anything, I could do to comfort her or to support her except, in some small, insignificant measure, to commiserate about our mutual sense of violation and imminent loss.
The duty sergeant asked Carol to cut our conversation short. He had some questions ...
Meanwhile, as Carol and I were to discover, every drawer was yanked open and then dumped onto the tiles and carpets in the perps' mission to steal any and all articles of value.
Jewelry boxes were rifled through, and then smashed to the floor. The burglars walked off with just about every piece of gold, diamond, and silver that we prized -- much of which had been heirlooms, passed down from her parents and mine.
Carol especially treasured three pieces of her jewelry: her Sterling silver charm bracelet she had worn since she was a teen, a 14-carat gold snowflake necklace I had given her as an anniversary gift some years ago, and a faux silver necklace of an alpaca's head which she bought at an Alpaca Breeders' Show in North Carolina.
The perps even took their sweet time converting our meticulously neat, walk-in closet into a rag bin. They found our Hurricane Evacuation Safe and jimmied the lock. They then walked away with a very substantial amount of Greenbacks.
(I have to thank them, however, for not pissing on the deeds, the birth certificates, Social Security Cards, insurance policies, wills, and other important documents when they left those items strewn all over the closet floor.)
The cops and the forensic team departed after spending two over hours doing their thing in the house. By then, Carol called me back to say that she was on Page Four of her hand-written list of missing inventory.
Despite all of the forensic and investigative tools available to modern Law Enforcement, the duty sergeant and the zone corporal mentioned that the odds of regaining our heisted possessions were, in all probability, less than 10,000 to 1. The most valuable stuff, made of gold and silver, was probably melted down already in either Tampa or in Miami.
More probably than not, the thieves are part of an out-of-town ring who thrive on breaking into seasonal residences. One tell-tale clue: the perps who broke into our hacienda successfully bypassed a security system without triggering any alarms.
On the remote possibility this crime was committed by a local cat burglar / junkie in need of a fix, the sergeant suggested Carol might want to cruise past the glass display cases residing within a few of the city's Pawn Shops. Maybe a few of our items had been hocked ...
As to the matter of who committed this particular crime, the police said they'd check out the Usual Suspects, and perhaps ask a few of their informants in-town if they heard anything.
It goes without saying that, to a violated woman such as Carol, and to an angry and frustrated alpaca-herding metaphysician such as I -- one who is lymphoma-ridden and who has blood counts so low that even the mosquitoes ignore me -- these were not the kind of statements from the police that we wanted to hear, under the circumstances.
In a matter of days, Carol calmed down a bit. She informed me that she has acquired the skill of sleeping with an eye open, with a baseball bat next to the bed stand to up the ante for any future burglar.
I, contemporaneously, have been developing a theory concerning the perp or perps who committed this crime.
As I now clearly recall, I mentioned to the adolescent daughter of one of my neighbor that I was heading North, to Vermont. This innocent and casual exchange occurred while we were standing in-line at the local convenience store: she was buying a Slurpee and I was acquiring a 12-pack of beer.
I didn't provide her with any details, that is, that I was seeking the best possible medical treatments offered at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, which happens to be one of the world's best treatment centers for blood and bone marrow disorders caused by chemotherapy.
I felt then, as I do now, that such information is far and away and above and beyond a 12-year old's abilities to understand.
The girl wished me well, and said that she'd tell her dad about it. Perhaps her dad could keep an eye on things, especially if Carol travelled to Vermont to stay with me? Perhaps she could watch the cats?
As to her second question, I said that wouldn't be necessary because the cats were going to Vermont with me. As to her first question, in retrospect, I should have sworn her to secrecy.
Here's why: It ultimately occurred to me that, for several years, I had been aware that this particular dad -- let's call him Blaine -- had occasionally strolled on the other side of the street as far as the law was concerned.
It is generally well-known that Blaine -- a Hard-Luck Red Neck if there was ever one -- had been picked up for petty theft a few years ago, did some time at the County Lockup, and had been in-and-out of the Can ever since for assault on his ex-girlfriend and for failure to pay child support.
Blaine hasn't held any kind of meaningful job in seven years. A bug extermination shop let him go when the Economy went South, and before that, he lost his job with the City Public Works Dept. when he flunked a random drug test.
Blaine's hootch -- which makes Dog Patch look like Beverley Hills -- is a magnate for several of his pals, all equally shady types who come and go at every conceivable hour of the day and night.
Here's my hypothesis: the girl told her dad that Carol and I would be away for awhile, and Blaine, in turn, shared the information with one or more of his associates.
Factoid: as everyone with a pulse knows, the State of Florida is infested with more cat burglars, petty thieves, second-story men / women, con artists, pick-pockets, junkies and "fences," per square foot, than any other place on this Planet.
Ergo: If Blaine blabbed to one of his associates about my particular situation, the odds of whetting the nefarious interests of one (or more) of his crew would be astronomic in favor of a break-in at our residence.
As I mentioned, this is just a theory...
It came to pass that Carol took the duty sergeant's advice. She popped in on a pawn shop located less than a quarter-mile from our place -- and to her utter shock, she saw her faux silver alpaca necklace in the display case.
Trembling, Carol took her exit and immediately called the police department. Within five minutes, Sgt. Gil, one of the city's best detectives, arrived on the scene.
Carol remained silent while Det. Sgt. Gill asked the questions:
Gil: Where did the necklace come from?
Pawnbroker: I had this in the case for eight months!
Gil: Show me the paperwork.
Pawnbroker: I don't have it. I lost it or misplaced it!
Gil: You will lose your license if you fail to produce the paperwork.
Pawnbroker: How does she know it's hers? It could have been dropped by anybody?
Gil: She owns six alpacas, owns an alpaca fiber business, and she has an alpaca sign on the door of her car.
Turns out that Det. Sgt. Gil folded the pawnbroker at that point like a cheap suitcase. It also turned out that the perp tendered the necklace to the pawnbroker on July 6th -- not eight months ago as the pawnbroker initially stated.
While the sergeant continued to grill the pawnbroker, Carol also found our missing Konica 35 MM camera and lenses locked within another display case. No paperwork.
If the name given by the person who pawned our possessions holds up, the police have their first solid lead in the case. In any event, the pawnbroker now finds myself in a Crap-Storm for a variety of legal reasons, to wit: (a) accepting stolen property; (b) failure to keep accurate and timely records; (c) giving false and misleading statements to the police.
The pawnbroker is obviously a Fence and I am wondering how Det. Sgt. Gill will leverage all of this to our benefit?
As this tale unfolds, there are some obvious lessons that come to my mind.
First, it's never a good idea to share travel plans with anyone other than a person whom you really, really trust. As in my case, you'll never know how others will use this information.
Second, tell your local police department when you'll be out-of-town for an extended period of time. I didn't know this, but most if not all police departments will increase their neighborhood patrols in your area if they are aware you'll be on vacation. They will do this as part of their community service component.
Third, make a list of all your possessions with a value in excess of $50 and then either photograph them individually, or make record of them on a digital or video camera. It will be of immense value if you retain and file all jewelry receipts. Make a separate list of the serial numbers of all electronic and power equipment. When compiled, place these lists in your safe deposit box.
Fourth, never rely solely on your home security system to protect you or your possessions. As we learned (the hard way) these types of systems can be bypassed and/ or defeated by perps. Back up your security by installing a sound system with sirens or horns in the eardrum-shattering 280-decibel range. A 500 decibel siren, mounted exteriorially, can alert neighbors and police as far as a half-mile away.
Fifth, never -- ever -- assign guilt to yourself in the event of a home invasion. Any perp, when motivated, will break through even the best of systems. Our job is simple: to make it very, very hard for them to succeed.
Meanwhile, Carol will continue to cruise the pawn shops and remain in touch with the police until we can resolve this very revolting development.
Here's hoping that Det. Sgt. Gil et.al. nail the thieves -- and let's see where my theory leads ...
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Sarah, We Love Ya, Baby!
New Year's Day last, I made a solemn resolution that I would do my best to compose a Sarah Palin Shaggy Dog sometime this year.
As everyone west of the Atlantic and east of the Pacific readily knows, a Shaggy Dog is a long, corny joke that leaves one initially groaning, then laughing -- sometimes hysterically.
How humans can generate two distinct reactions in this fashion is inexplicable --that is, go from groan to hysteria in less than 2 seconds. Who the Hell knows! I'm a Metaphysician, not a psychologist.
If you have an interest in discovering the origins of the Shaggy Dog, go back in the VM Archives and dig out the post I wrote concerning the topic last December.
For now, let's just say that an episode of "Seinfeld" or the old classic, "The Jack Benny Show" would qualify as stand-alone Shaggy Dogs, that is, if you catch my drift.
Whatever: my objective is framed by the following criteria:
A Sarah Palin Shaggy Dog must contain her interaction with one or two of the following three elements, to wit: a Kangaroo; a Penguin; and/or a Duck.
As is in the case of virtually every Shaggy Dog, my objective is not to overly disparage nor denigrate the subjects. I'm attempting to find the Comic Boundary Line here, the one that separates humor from poor taste.
I will also state, for the record, that I am making a special attempt not to anger the Kangaroo which, as we all know, can box at a world-class level.
And whether or not I rile Ms. Palin's feathers, however, is of no concern to me. She's the "Momma Grizzly" from Alaska and a former governor who ought to be able to take it -- a pol, I might add, who believes she has the Stuff to be President.
Sean Hannity, Rush, Glenn et. al. and the rest of her Neo-Con -Tea-Bagging supporters claim she has Presidential Timmmmm-buuurrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Ouch!
But I digress...
Herewith are four Sarah Palin Shaggies which I consider works-in-progress, or in other words, exercises undertaken to prepare me for the Big One.
By all means, feel free to send me your "Palin Shaggies" if you're so inspired!
SD #1. Sarah Palin and a kangaroo reach the top of the Denali Glacier. By now, Palin's hands are freezing. So she says to the kangaroo: Do you mind if I stick my hands into your pouch, to warm them up? The kangaroo says OK. To which Sarah says: I feel crazy doing this. And the kangaroo answers: Dig down a bit deeper, and you'll feel nuts!
SD #2. Sarah Palin, a kangaroo and a penguin were climbing Mr. McKinley and Sarah looks at the Kangaroo and says: "Where's your backpack?" The kangaroo looks over at the Penguin and says: "What a silly ass! Doesn't she know I'm equipped with a Front-pack?"
SD #3. Sarah Palin and the Kangaroo are flying 1st lass from Fairbanks to DC. The Kangaroo looks out the window and shouts: "Holy Shit! There's a duck hanging onto the wing for dear life!" To which Sarah responds: "Oh, don't worry about him. He's just my speech writer."
As everyone west of the Atlantic and east of the Pacific readily knows, a Shaggy Dog is a long, corny joke that leaves one initially groaning, then laughing -- sometimes hysterically.
How humans can generate two distinct reactions in this fashion is inexplicable --that is, go from groan to hysteria in less than 2 seconds. Who the Hell knows! I'm a Metaphysician, not a psychologist.
If you have an interest in discovering the origins of the Shaggy Dog, go back in the VM Archives and dig out the post I wrote concerning the topic last December.
For now, let's just say that an episode of "Seinfeld" or the old classic, "The Jack Benny Show" would qualify as stand-alone Shaggy Dogs, that is, if you catch my drift.
Whatever: my objective is framed by the following criteria:
A Sarah Palin Shaggy Dog must contain her interaction with one or two of the following three elements, to wit: a Kangaroo; a Penguin; and/or a Duck.
As is in the case of virtually every Shaggy Dog, my objective is not to overly disparage nor denigrate the subjects. I'm attempting to find the Comic Boundary Line here, the one that separates humor from poor taste.
I will also state, for the record, that I am making a special attempt not to anger the Kangaroo which, as we all know, can box at a world-class level.
And whether or not I rile Ms. Palin's feathers, however, is of no concern to me. She's the "Momma Grizzly" from Alaska and a former governor who ought to be able to take it -- a pol, I might add, who believes she has the Stuff to be President.
Sean Hannity, Rush, Glenn et. al. and the rest of her Neo-Con -Tea-Bagging supporters claim she has Presidential Timmmmm-buuurrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Ouch!
But I digress...
Herewith are four Sarah Palin Shaggies which I consider works-in-progress, or in other words, exercises undertaken to prepare me for the Big One.
By all means, feel free to send me your "Palin Shaggies" if you're so inspired!
SD #1. Sarah Palin and a kangaroo reach the top of the Denali Glacier. By now, Palin's hands are freezing. So she says to the kangaroo: Do you mind if I stick my hands into your pouch, to warm them up? The kangaroo says OK. To which Sarah says: I feel crazy doing this. And the kangaroo answers: Dig down a bit deeper, and you'll feel nuts!
SD #2. Sarah Palin, a kangaroo and a penguin were climbing Mr. McKinley and Sarah looks at the Kangaroo and says: "Where's your backpack?" The kangaroo looks over at the Penguin and says: "What a silly ass! Doesn't she know I'm equipped with a Front-pack?"
SD #3. Sarah Palin and the Kangaroo are flying 1st lass from Fairbanks to DC. The Kangaroo looks out the window and shouts: "Holy Shit! There's a duck hanging onto the wing for dear life!" To which Sarah responds: "Oh, don't worry about him. He's just my speech writer."
Entering The Greatest Unknown With Dr. George Sheehan
"We are all an experiment of one."
Those immortal words were written about 30 years ago by Dr. George A. Sheehan, the cardiologist who became one of the iconic Gurus of the running community.
George (I'll continue to use his first name in subsequent reference because he had no pretense for any of that "doctor" stuff) vaulted to the summit of runner-dom through publication of his insightful -- and occasionally inciteful -- articles in Runners' World Magazine.
At first, George's writing counseled the mileage-aching how to alleviate muscle pain by stretching, followed by application of ice, followed by more stretching.
His word-advice to flabby newbies? Start off slowly.
Walk three miles every other day. Then run and walk three miles. Then run three without stopping to walk.
When the body adjusts to running that distance in, say, two or three months, try moving the distance out to five miles -- and take it slowly.
When the five-miler became a piece of cake, George counseled: extend the distance out to 6.2 miles -- the iconic 10-K, the standard benchmark for all serious road runners.
Then, hold the mileage there for a year, allowing the body to adapt and to adjust.
Running, to his estimation, was a long-term investment in oneself. The sport paid cardiovascular dividends in weight loss, lower blood pressure, lower pulse rate, improved diet, more restful sleep patterns, and a greater ability to concentrate.
Yet George's writings also offered more than Guruism on the fitness/orthopedic/cardiovascular fronts.
He moved his words into the realm of philosophy.
Those of us who were "fit" physically were "Good Animals" adhering to millions of years of genetic commands. Running was the modern-day extension of Homo Sapien's Hunter-Gatherer Heritage.
He also wrote that all those aches, injury, fatigue, illness, and ennui were merely challenges to be overcome. All one need do is to listen and to pay close attention to the rhythms of one's own body and one's own pulse rate, and persevere.
By our nature, and if we are in harmony with our bodies, we cannot help to become anything else but Stoics.
The human body is the best teacher. "We are all an experiment of one."
I admired and liked George (more about my employment of the Past Tense in a bit) because he really, really practiced what he preached.
He also wasn't beneath enjoying a cold beer or four after a road race, or offering sage advice ranging from race tactics to the running life-style.
Like just about like every doctor you know (there I go again: another Valley Girl slip) , George could be irascible on occasion. And yet, he was very approachable.
(One, however, would never, ever approach George before a race: one would get his head bitten off for breaking the Good Doctor's pre-race ritual while he focused, like a Zen Master, on internalizing his powers of concentration.)
Throughout his own running career, George seemed to ignore his own advice.
He pushed himself during races -- 10Ks and marathons -- far beyond the point of rational endurance. In exceptionally competitive races, such as those held in Van Courtland Park in The Bronx, he would literally pass out after crossing the finish line.
Dig it: he was an outstanding track star at Manhattan College who went off to medical school, returning to the track on his 45th birthday - a successful, but woefully sedentary medical practitioner seeking his own youth and re-birth.
So he ran around a high school quarter-mile track on that eventful day until he collapsed. Teenaged athletes who witnessed him out there, suffering on the cinders, thought he had lost his mind -- and they came to admire him for his absolute refusal to quit.
And whatever he was looking for, George found it on that day.
The rest of this story, as they say, is history ... almost:
George went on to set an age-group world record in The Mile with a time of 4:47 at age 50!
He also set a few other age-group national records in various other racing distances.
Later in life, he was a highly-sought-after author, celebrity and motivational speaker about the subject of athletic training as it relates to business performance.
And then, fatefully, one evening in the mid-1980s, he detected that something was going drastically wrong within his own body.
It started with night sweats, followed by a precipitous decline in stamina.
The Stoic within him kept him running on the roads -- but with a noticeable sharp pain and increase in his times -- and an agonizingly long increase in the time it took for him to recover his strength from a race.
So he saw his doctor in 1986.
The diagnosis was prostrate cancer.
He continued to run until his legs could no longer carry him.
"Going The Distance" was his last book.
But it wasn't about running: it was about dying.
It was a chronicle about the Ultimate Stoic -- an Experiment Of One.
The processes of dying stimulated his intellectual curiosity.
"Going The Distance" was published shortly after George's death, in 1993.
From my perspective, our Planet is a much-better place because Dr. George A. Sheehan's running shoes had trodden upon it.
![]()
Those immortal words were written about 30 years ago by Dr. George A. Sheehan, the cardiologist who became one of the iconic Gurus of the running community.
George (I'll continue to use his first name in subsequent reference because he had no pretense for any of that "doctor" stuff) vaulted to the summit of runner-dom through publication of his insightful -- and occasionally inciteful -- articles in Runners' World Magazine.
At first, George's writing counseled the mileage-aching how to alleviate muscle pain by stretching, followed by application of ice, followed by more stretching.
His word-advice to flabby newbies? Start off slowly.
Walk three miles every other day. Then run and walk three miles. Then run three without stopping to walk.
When the body adjusts to running that distance in, say, two or three months, try moving the distance out to five miles -- and take it slowly.
When the five-miler became a piece of cake, George counseled: extend the distance out to 6.2 miles -- the iconic 10-K, the standard benchmark for all serious road runners.
Then, hold the mileage there for a year, allowing the body to adapt and to adjust.
Running, to his estimation, was a long-term investment in oneself. The sport paid cardiovascular dividends in weight loss, lower blood pressure, lower pulse rate, improved diet, more restful sleep patterns, and a greater ability to concentrate.
Yet George's writings also offered more than Guruism on the fitness/orthopedic/cardiovascular fronts.
He moved his words into the realm of philosophy.
Those of us who were "fit" physically were "Good Animals" adhering to millions of years of genetic commands. Running was the modern-day extension of Homo Sapien's Hunter-Gatherer Heritage.
He also wrote that all those aches, injury, fatigue, illness, and ennui were merely challenges to be overcome. All one need do is to listen and to pay close attention to the rhythms of one's own body and one's own pulse rate, and persevere.
By our nature, and if we are in harmony with our bodies, we cannot help to become anything else but Stoics.
The human body is the best teacher. "We are all an experiment of one."
I admired and liked George (more about my employment of the Past Tense in a bit) because he really, really practiced what he preached.
He also wasn't beneath enjoying a cold beer or four after a road race, or offering sage advice ranging from race tactics to the running life-style.
Like just about like every doctor you know (there I go again: another Valley Girl slip) , George could be irascible on occasion. And yet, he was very approachable.
(One, however, would never, ever approach George before a race: one would get his head bitten off for breaking the Good Doctor's pre-race ritual while he focused, like a Zen Master, on internalizing his powers of concentration.)
Throughout his own running career, George seemed to ignore his own advice.
He pushed himself during races -- 10Ks and marathons -- far beyond the point of rational endurance. In exceptionally competitive races, such as those held in Van Courtland Park in The Bronx, he would literally pass out after crossing the finish line.
Dig it: he was an outstanding track star at Manhattan College who went off to medical school, returning to the track on his 45th birthday - a successful, but woefully sedentary medical practitioner seeking his own youth and re-birth.
So he ran around a high school quarter-mile track on that eventful day until he collapsed. Teenaged athletes who witnessed him out there, suffering on the cinders, thought he had lost his mind -- and they came to admire him for his absolute refusal to quit.
And whatever he was looking for, George found it on that day.
The rest of this story, as they say, is history ... almost:
George went on to set an age-group world record in The Mile with a time of 4:47 at age 50!
He also set a few other age-group national records in various other racing distances.
Later in life, he was a highly-sought-after author, celebrity and motivational speaker about the subject of athletic training as it relates to business performance.
And then, fatefully, one evening in the mid-1980s, he detected that something was going drastically wrong within his own body.
It started with night sweats, followed by a precipitous decline in stamina.
The Stoic within him kept him running on the roads -- but with a noticeable sharp pain and increase in his times -- and an agonizingly long increase in the time it took for him to recover his strength from a race.
So he saw his doctor in 1986.
The diagnosis was prostrate cancer.
He continued to run until his legs could no longer carry him.
"Going The Distance" was his last book.
But it wasn't about running: it was about dying.
It was a chronicle about the Ultimate Stoic -- an Experiment Of One.
The processes of dying stimulated his intellectual curiosity.
"Going The Distance" was published shortly after George's death, in 1993.
From my perspective, our Planet is a much-better place because Dr. George A. Sheehan's running shoes had trodden upon it.
Dr. George A. Sheehan
1918 - 1989
Friday, June 17, 2011
The United States of Shame
One of the most profoundly-significant studies of the status of health care in America has just been released by the University of Washington's Institute for Health Care Metrics and Evaluation.
Researchers checked death records in each and every county in the United States, between the years 1987 and 2007. What they discovered was a stunning disparity between the lifespans of the wealthy and the poor, especially taking note that African-Americans live much shorter lives than whites.
A plain read of this report will shed no overt light on the matter of National Affordable Health Care for All Americans. But if you carefully read between the lines, its authors make a Screaming Case that those of us who can afford adequate health insurance are virtually certain to make it into our 80s.
Alas, those who don't have health coverage, or who have inadequate coverage, will be lucky if they make it into their early 70s.
In addition to the lifespan gap between blacks and whites, the report also notes that women, generally, will not live as long as men -- especially in the Deep South, Appalachia, and North Texas.
As I said earlier, the authors deftly ducked the ObamaCare Bullet. But as in the case of all quality research, as in the case of all quality applications of the law, their tacit case for comprehensive health care reform is built upon a fact-by-fact examination of all the evidence -- in this instance over-time and national in-scope.
For example, and by way of comparison, the authors assert that people in five rural Mississippi counties experience the shortest life spans: men (67 years) and women (74.5 years). The populations of these counties are overwhelmingly African-American and a vast majority of those who live there lack health insurance.
Meanwhile, the authors found that men and women who live in Montgomery, Maryland generally make it into their early 80s. The population of this Washington, DC suburb is predominantly African-American -- but there, most residents have great-paying jobs and benefits working for government (or jobs related to the government) and, therefore, they have adequate health insurance.
You may deduce whatever conclusion you want from the two examples that I've highlighted above after you've read the entire report, which I have re-printed below this missive.
It's pretty long but it's very interesting and it's substantive -- very, very substantive.
I'm saying it's all Economics -- it's the Haves vs.the Have-Nots.
To further reinforce my "take" on this matter, the authors found that women in Collier County, Florida generally live until they are 86 years old -- tops in the nation. Men fare OK there too: they make it to age 82.
Collier County is the home of Naples, Florida. Naples just happens to be one of the wealthiest -- if not the wealthiest-- towns in the USA and home to more retired and active billionaires and millionaires than any other place in America outside of Manhattan.
Naples Community Hospital owns an outstanding reputation, especially in the fields of health and care of the aging -- but it has a problem: the standard of living is so high in Naples, that not even doctors can afford to live there!
And, in case you're wondering, neither can African-Americans. Naples has the fewest number of Blacks, by percentrage of population, of all the cities and towns in Florida.
The real eye opener of this report: the states most dead-set against National Health Care Reform are home to the people who experience the shortest lifespans in America.
Another eye-opener: this profoundly important story has been ignored in the Mainstream Media.
In my own Quixotic Mission to rectify this revolting development, I herewith present the entire article.
The most current county-level analysis finds large disparities nationwide. Women fare worse than men, and people in Appalachia, the Deep South, and Northern Texas live the shortest lives.
June 15, 2011 - While people in Japan, Canada, and other nations are enjoying significant gains in life expectancy every year, most counties within the United States are falling behind, according to a new study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington.
Researchers checked death records in each and every county in the United States, between the years 1987 and 2007. What they discovered was a stunning disparity between the lifespans of the wealthy and the poor, especially taking note that African-Americans live much shorter lives than whites.
A plain read of this report will shed no overt light on the matter of National Affordable Health Care for All Americans. But if you carefully read between the lines, its authors make a Screaming Case that those of us who can afford adequate health insurance are virtually certain to make it into our 80s.
Alas, those who don't have health coverage, or who have inadequate coverage, will be lucky if they make it into their early 70s.
In addition to the lifespan gap between blacks and whites, the report also notes that women, generally, will not live as long as men -- especially in the Deep South, Appalachia, and North Texas.
As I said earlier, the authors deftly ducked the ObamaCare Bullet. But as in the case of all quality research, as in the case of all quality applications of the law, their tacit case for comprehensive health care reform is built upon a fact-by-fact examination of all the evidence -- in this instance over-time and national in-scope.
For example, and by way of comparison, the authors assert that people in five rural Mississippi counties experience the shortest life spans: men (67 years) and women (74.5 years). The populations of these counties are overwhelmingly African-American and a vast majority of those who live there lack health insurance.
Meanwhile, the authors found that men and women who live in Montgomery, Maryland generally make it into their early 80s. The population of this Washington, DC suburb is predominantly African-American -- but there, most residents have great-paying jobs and benefits working for government (or jobs related to the government) and, therefore, they have adequate health insurance.
You may deduce whatever conclusion you want from the two examples that I've highlighted above after you've read the entire report, which I have re-printed below this missive.
It's pretty long but it's very interesting and it's substantive -- very, very substantive.
I'm saying it's all Economics -- it's the Haves vs.the Have-Nots.
To further reinforce my "take" on this matter, the authors found that women in Collier County, Florida generally live until they are 86 years old -- tops in the nation. Men fare OK there too: they make it to age 82.
Collier County is the home of Naples, Florida. Naples just happens to be one of the wealthiest -- if not the wealthiest-- towns in the USA and home to more retired and active billionaires and millionaires than any other place in America outside of Manhattan.
Naples Community Hospital owns an outstanding reputation, especially in the fields of health and care of the aging -- but it has a problem: the standard of living is so high in Naples, that not even doctors can afford to live there!
And, in case you're wondering, neither can African-Americans. Naples has the fewest number of Blacks, by percentrage of population, of all the cities and towns in Florida.
The real eye opener of this report: the states most dead-set against National Health Care Reform are home to the people who experience the shortest lifespans in America.
Another eye-opener: this profoundly important story has been ignored in the Mainstream Media.
In my own Quixotic Mission to rectify this revolting development, I herewith present the entire article.
*******
The most current county-level analysis finds large disparities nationwide. Women fare worse than men, and people in Appalachia, the Deep South, and Northern Texas live the shortest lives.
June 15, 2011 - While people in Japan, Canada, and other nations are enjoying significant gains in life expectancy every year, most counties within the United States are falling behind, according to a new study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington.
IHME researchers, in collaboration with researchers at Imperial College London, found that between 2000 and 2007, more than 80% of counties fell in standing against the average of the 10 nations with the best life expectancies in the world, known as the international frontier.
“We are finally able to answer the question of how the US fares in comparison to its peers globally,” said Dr. Christopher Murray, IHME Director and one of the paper’s co-authors. “Despite the fact that the US spends more per capita than any other nation on health, eight out of every 10 counties are not keeping pace in terms of health outcomes. That’s a staggering statistic.”
The new study, Falling behind: life expectancy in US counties from 2000 to 2007 in an international context, was published June 15, 2011 in BioMed Central’s open-access journal Population Health Metrics. In conjunction with the study, IHME is releasing a complete time series for life expectancy from 1987 to 2007 for all counties, the most up-to-date analysis available.
When compared to the international frontier for life expectancy, US counties range from being 16 calendar years ahead to more than 50 behind for women. For men, the range is from 15 calendar years ahead to more than 50 calendar years behind. This means that some counties have a life expectancy today that nations with the best health outcomes had in 1957.
The researchers suggest that the relatively low life expectancies in the US cannot be explained by the size of the nation, racial diversity, or economics. Instead, the authors point to high rates of obesity, tobacco use, and other preventable risk factors for an early death as the leading drivers of the gap between the US and other nations.
Five counties in Mississippi have the lowest life expectancies for women, all below 74.5 years, putting them behind nations such as Honduras, El Salvador, and Peru. Four of those counties, along with Humphreys County, MS, have the lowest life expectancies for men, all below 67 years, meaning they are behind Brazil, Latvia, and the Philippines.
Women live the longest in Collier, FL, at 86 years on average, better than France, Switzerland, and Spain. Men live the longest in Fairfax County, VA, at 81.1 years, which is higher than life expectancies in Japan and Australia. Women are also living long lives in Teton, Wyoming; San Mateo and Marin, California; and Montgomery, Maryland. For men, long life spans also can be found in Marin, California; Montgomery, Maryland; Santa Clara, California; and Douglas, Colorado.
Nationwide, women fare more poorly than men. The researchers found that women in 1,373 counties – about 40% of US counties – fell more than five years behind the nations with the best life expectancies. Men in about half as many counties – 661 total – fell that far.
Black men and women have lower life expectancies than white men and women in all counties. Life expectancy for black women ranges from 69.6 to 82.6 years, and for black men, from 59.4 to 77.2 years. In both cases, no counties are ahead of the international frontier, and some are more than 50 years behind. The researchers were not able to analyze other race categories because of low population levels in many counties.
Change in life expectancy is so uneven that within some states there is now a decade difference between the counties with the longest lives and those with the shortest. States such as Arizona, Florida, Virginia, and Georgia have seen counties leap forward more than five years from 1987 to 2007 while nearby counties stagnate or even lose years of life expectancy. In Arizona, Yuma County’s average life expectancy for men increased 8.5 years, nearly twice the national average, while neighboring La Paz County lost a full year of life expectancy, the steepest drop nationwide. Nationally, life expectancy increased 4.3 years for men and 2.4 years for women between 1987 and 2007.
“By creating this time series, which has never been available at the county level, we hope states and counties will be able to take targeted action,” Dr. Sandeep Kulkarni, an IHME research fellow and the paper’s lead author, said. “Counties in one part of the state should not be benefiting from big increases in life expectancy while other counties are actually seeing life spans shrink.”
The authors propose that state and local policymakers use the life expectancy data and the county comparisons to tailor strategies that will fit the dynamics of their communities. This resonates with local policymakers, such as Dr. David Fleming, Director of Public Health - Seattle & King County.
“It’s not the health care system that’s having the biggest impact on health; it’s the community,” Dr. Fleming said. “The average person in the US spends one hour annually in a physician’s office unless they are really sick. So until we start moving our interventions out into the communities where people live, we are not going to get ahead of these problems.”
The Seattle & King County health department is collaborating with IHME on an ambitious analysis of health in King County, one of the largest studies of its kind. Called the Monitoring Disparities in Chronic Conditions (MDCC) Study, researchers are integrating data from emergency medical services, hospital discharge databases, pharmacy records, and other sources to identify the biggest health challenges in King County. They are surveying 9,000 people and taking blood samples to analyze for a range of risk factors and diseases.
“We are building the evidence for focused interventions that will make an impact locally,” said Dr. Ali Mokdad, Professor of Global Health at IHME, who is leading the MDCC Study. “If we as a society are going to fund programs to improve health, we must ensure that we are measuring the impact, because these life expectancy numbers show that what we have been doing up until now clearly is not working.”
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is an independent global research center at the University of Washington providing sound measurement of population health and the factors that determine health, as well as rigorous evaluation of health system and health program performance. The Institute’s goal is to improve population health by providing the best evidence possible to guide health policy – and by making that evidence easily accessible to decision-makers as they strategically fund, design, and implement programs to improve health outcomes worldwide. IHME was created in 2007 through funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the state of Washington.
###
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
State of Existentialism
Sartre, Camus and Kafka were spot-on: to paraphrase and simplify their reasoning, we are constantly in a state of denial despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
What prompts this latest assessment in Great Thinking?
Here's a couple of good ones: there have been a few panther sightings down in Connecticut.
Several folks have reported panthers -- or if you prefer, mountain lions - transiting through the wilds of Greenwich, the bastion of the ultra-wealthy and home of Ivana Trump located about a nine-iron, geographically speaking, from New York City.
Panther sighting reports, primarily from the town's rocky and heavily-forested northern tier, started to trickle in over a week ago to the Greenwich Police Department.
"Whatever," said the cops in their Finest Fairfield County Cool -- that is until a fine, upstanding citizen (no doubt an executive with Goldman Sachs) told the PD that he had seen a panther cross over from property managed by the Audubon Society into the grounds of an exclusive All-Boys Prep School.
That did it!
This particular sighting inspired the Greenwich Police to "lock down" an entire neighborhood. The Town Fathers even got into the act and called in experts from the state Department of Environmental Protection to investigate matters.
Biologists in search of wandering mountain lions usually look for evidence such as paw prints, fur swatches, half-eaten carcasses, and spoor (otherwise known as "Panther "Poop") to determine whether or not these magnificent creatures are in the neighborhood.
During their first go-round, experts found nothing in the neighborhood by way of evidence.
By now, however, the Media was sniffing around for a story.
A PR type from the state DEP issued forth the following proclamation: any panther roaming around any part of Greenwich -- or for that matter, in any part of Connecticut, was an impossibility. Mountain lions have been extinct in the state for more than two centuries.
Besides which, Greenwich and the neighboring communities on either side of the CT/NY Border are heavily urbanized / suburbanized and it makes no sense for a large animal such as a panther, which prides itself in its solitary seclusion, to be wandering around in such places.
And so it came to pass that, less than 12 hours later, a member of the hoi polloi, while tooling along in the wee hours in an SUV at 60 mph along the Merritt Parkway 30 miles northeast of Greenwich, smacked into a mountain lion crossing the parkway.
The big cat, sadly and tragically, suffered fatal injury.
So the State Police awakened the same DEP team which investigated the Greenwich panther sitings. DEP experts drove to Milford to use their arts and skills over a quite Unique- for -Connecticut form of road kill.
The dearly-departed Cat weighed in at 145 pounds. It measured more than seven feet from whiskers to tail-tip. The experts noted the animal appeared to have been well-nourished and that its teeth -- particularly its fang-like incisors -- were in nearly perfect shape.
Best guess: the panther was a three-year old, an Unfortunate Tom when it met its demise.
I don't know whether or not the experts were finished with their first, or their second Cafe Mochas when it must have occurred to them that they had a problem on their hands, to wit:
If mountain lions are extinct in the Land of Steady Habits, where the Hell did this one come from?
They also were presented with a Riddle: the carcass they were just about to place into a Body Bag, and return to their lab for further research, was found a significant distance away from Greenwich.
Was it possible for this particular panther to have wandered about plus/minus 30 miles in 12 hours' time?
By the time the PR person hooked up with them, the DEP experts began to formulate a Theory: the animal had either (a) escaped from a Game Preserve; or (b) it had been abandoned by someone with a pastiche for Exotic Pets.
Then their lives became even more complicated: As the PR Type stood before TV cameras to advance these hypothesises, another panther sighting was being reported back in Greenwich!
Obviously, whoever alerted the Greenwich PD wasn't looking at the same cat!
Given all of the mounting evidence, the DEP clings to its Theories. Meanwhile, a new Wall emerged over on Facebook devoted to the "Connecticut Mountain Lion."
At last check-in, the Wall contained more than 1,600 posts about first-hand panther sighting from folks all over Connecticut -- and the Northeast, and as far away as Iowa and Michigan.
I have my own theories: (a) there are more White Tail Deer in Connecticut, the preferred "food" of the mountain lion, than Registered Voters; and (b) in the absence of predators (other than the "automobile"), panthers are working their way down the Adirondacks and the Berkshires, propagating and therefore re-establishing themselves in their natural, territorial habitats.
If this is the case, we should all rejoice!
The best news is that folks should have nothing to fear. A quick check on this matter shows that there have been no panther attacks on humans in many years. Those that have taken place occurred when humans startled the animals -- especially females with cubs.
We just aren't on their menu, what with the abundance of White Tail Deer throughout the entire Northeast.
Even if one is overly-nervous and will lose sleep that mountain lions will initiate attacks on household pets and livestock, rest assured experts will advise us how to manage these issues.
The re-emergence of the Eastern Mountain Lion, or Panther, or Catamount, or Puma -- take your pick and enjoy! -- into the environment should not be feared.
It should be celebrated.
So the questions become:
What can the states do?
Wildlife experts can -- with Gusto -- undertake a comprehensive study and begin to formulate necessary regulations to protect the Big Cats while they re-establish themselves in more rugged terrains.
To minimize car/mountain lion encounters, highway experts, working in conjunction with the game experts, can designate lower-speed, 40 mph corridors across their highways by posting "Caution-Panther Crossing" signs. Hey kids! How cool is that!
Furthermore, what can we do?
We can encourage aggressive research and development into creating panther habitats. These magnificent animals have been here for millenia -- we drove them to the point of extinction and now bear (no pun intended) a responsibility to help them recover within their natural and traditional habitat.
All humans need do is: stand back, give them space, and enjoy!
So, Connecticut et. al: what more evidence will you require?
Should a Mountain Lion jump into the passenger seat of a state DEP experts' car and order up a Triple Latte?
What prompts this latest assessment in Great Thinking?
Here's a couple of good ones: there have been a few panther sightings down in Connecticut.
Several folks have reported panthers -- or if you prefer, mountain lions - transiting through the wilds of Greenwich, the bastion of the ultra-wealthy and home of Ivana Trump located about a nine-iron, geographically speaking, from New York City.
Panther sighting reports, primarily from the town's rocky and heavily-forested northern tier, started to trickle in over a week ago to the Greenwich Police Department.
"Whatever," said the cops in their Finest Fairfield County Cool -- that is until a fine, upstanding citizen (no doubt an executive with Goldman Sachs) told the PD that he had seen a panther cross over from property managed by the Audubon Society into the grounds of an exclusive All-Boys Prep School.
That did it!
This particular sighting inspired the Greenwich Police to "lock down" an entire neighborhood. The Town Fathers even got into the act and called in experts from the state Department of Environmental Protection to investigate matters.
Biologists in search of wandering mountain lions usually look for evidence such as paw prints, fur swatches, half-eaten carcasses, and spoor (otherwise known as "Panther "Poop") to determine whether or not these magnificent creatures are in the neighborhood.
During their first go-round, experts found nothing in the neighborhood by way of evidence.
By now, however, the Media was sniffing around for a story.
A PR type from the state DEP issued forth the following proclamation: any panther roaming around any part of Greenwich -- or for that matter, in any part of Connecticut, was an impossibility. Mountain lions have been extinct in the state for more than two centuries.
Besides which, Greenwich and the neighboring communities on either side of the CT/NY Border are heavily urbanized / suburbanized and it makes no sense for a large animal such as a panther, which prides itself in its solitary seclusion, to be wandering around in such places.
And so it came to pass that, less than 12 hours later, a member of the hoi polloi, while tooling along in the wee hours in an SUV at 60 mph along the Merritt Parkway 30 miles northeast of Greenwich, smacked into a mountain lion crossing the parkway.
The big cat, sadly and tragically, suffered fatal injury.
So the State Police awakened the same DEP team which investigated the Greenwich panther sitings. DEP experts drove to Milford to use their arts and skills over a quite Unique- for -Connecticut form of road kill.
The dearly-departed Cat weighed in at 145 pounds. It measured more than seven feet from whiskers to tail-tip. The experts noted the animal appeared to have been well-nourished and that its teeth -- particularly its fang-like incisors -- were in nearly perfect shape.
Best guess: the panther was a three-year old, an Unfortunate Tom when it met its demise.
I don't know whether or not the experts were finished with their first, or their second Cafe Mochas when it must have occurred to them that they had a problem on their hands, to wit:
If mountain lions are extinct in the Land of Steady Habits, where the Hell did this one come from?
They also were presented with a Riddle: the carcass they were just about to place into a Body Bag, and return to their lab for further research, was found a significant distance away from Greenwich.
Was it possible for this particular panther to have wandered about plus/minus 30 miles in 12 hours' time?
By the time the PR person hooked up with them, the DEP experts began to formulate a Theory: the animal had either (a) escaped from a Game Preserve; or (b) it had been abandoned by someone with a pastiche for Exotic Pets.
Then their lives became even more complicated: As the PR Type stood before TV cameras to advance these hypothesises, another panther sighting was being reported back in Greenwich!
Obviously, whoever alerted the Greenwich PD wasn't looking at the same cat!
Given all of the mounting evidence, the DEP clings to its Theories. Meanwhile, a new Wall emerged over on Facebook devoted to the "Connecticut Mountain Lion."
At last check-in, the Wall contained more than 1,600 posts about first-hand panther sighting from folks all over Connecticut -- and the Northeast, and as far away as Iowa and Michigan.
I have my own theories: (a) there are more White Tail Deer in Connecticut, the preferred "food" of the mountain lion, than Registered Voters; and (b) in the absence of predators (other than the "automobile"), panthers are working their way down the Adirondacks and the Berkshires, propagating and therefore re-establishing themselves in their natural, territorial habitats.
If this is the case, we should all rejoice!
The best news is that folks should have nothing to fear. A quick check on this matter shows that there have been no panther attacks on humans in many years. Those that have taken place occurred when humans startled the animals -- especially females with cubs.
We just aren't on their menu, what with the abundance of White Tail Deer throughout the entire Northeast.
Even if one is overly-nervous and will lose sleep that mountain lions will initiate attacks on household pets and livestock, rest assured experts will advise us how to manage these issues.
The re-emergence of the Eastern Mountain Lion, or Panther, or Catamount, or Puma -- take your pick and enjoy! -- into the environment should not be feared.
It should be celebrated.
So the questions become:
What can the states do?
Wildlife experts can -- with Gusto -- undertake a comprehensive study and begin to formulate necessary regulations to protect the Big Cats while they re-establish themselves in more rugged terrains.
To minimize car/mountain lion encounters, highway experts, working in conjunction with the game experts, can designate lower-speed, 40 mph corridors across their highways by posting "Caution-Panther Crossing" signs. Hey kids! How cool is that!
Furthermore, what can we do?
We can encourage aggressive research and development into creating panther habitats. These magnificent animals have been here for millenia -- we drove them to the point of extinction and now bear (no pun intended) a responsibility to help them recover within their natural and traditional habitat.
All humans need do is: stand back, give them space, and enjoy!
So, Connecticut et. al: what more evidence will you require?
Should a Mountain Lion jump into the passenger seat of a state DEP experts' car and order up a Triple Latte?
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FOOTNOTE to SD #1. My apologies to Red Skelton...