Cancer sucks

We got totally shitty news Saturday. The 6-year old son of some friends at church, whom we haven't unfortunately seen in a while, discovered he has cancer. Not some pansy-ass whimpy thing like leukemia. The name is 2" long and ends with -carcinoma. It's highly aggressive & highly malignant.

Something so rare in kids that the docs at the Mayo Clinic [just down the road from here] initially said, "that can't be right", go get another opinion. 4 opinions later ...

There's only 2 cases reported in the literature about kids. Which translates to "we're sort of clueless about what to do".

He started chemo over the weekend. A whirlwind saga of options on chemo, surgery, and lots of medical terminology.

They aren't telling him the extent of the extremely poor prognosis. It hadn't occurred to me that there would be a psych specialist for the parents. Managing the information flow to their child, to help him stay informed enough about what's being done to him without nuking his still-positive outlook.

I'm not sure if Jr.Gopher#1 remembers the boy - right after we started going to St. Albert's, there were four boys all the same age who really enjoyed playing together.

A friend of the family is in the home stretch dealing with pancreatic cancer. Did I mention cancer sucks? He's 78. As unhappy as I will be, and likely contemplating the age of my parents, it will not be a life cut tragically short. 6 years, though ...?

Explaining to Jr.#1 that Don is sick and probably won't live much longer seemed a beneficial situation. After all, he intellectually knows that old people die. I am assuming [?] that Don's death won't be emotionally traumatic. Raven the Cat dying will probably be more emotional.

We told the boys that Mr.Gopher's uncle died - but this was 2 years ago. We could have said any other stranger died, for all it mattered to them. They had never even heard of this man.

So, thankfully at least, their first exposure to Death will be the death of someone they actually know, and it won't be their grandparents. But this boy? Even if Michael doesn't remember him all that well, trying to explain that a 6-year old boy probably won't live through the Summer...? God. No wonder people want to be atheists.

I was the Lector yesterday at Mass, and read the Prayers of Intercession.

These are the prayers that include:
lector: "For the healing of the sick, we pray."
Response: "Lord hear our prayer"

I was sooooo close to simply adding the boy's name to the list of the sick and realized I didn't know if the parent would want me to ... it made me feel so sad to refrain from asking people to pray for him.

So,
For the healing of Will Newll and the courage of his parent, we pray.
Lord, hear our prayers.

If anyone can, please say a prayer - or whatever intervention method you want - for Will Newell.

I'm usually one who cries at the drop of a hat. This ...? Mr.Gopher told me on Saturday night. It was this afternoon before it hit me. I'm sitting in the StPl library, trying to finish my thesis, and I can't stop crying and don't have any kleenex.

Laugh? Cry?

Today at the University of Minnesota Industrial Hygiene lab
we return to the on-going saga of our grad student's valiant efforts to get data.
We open on the scene of her meeting with her research adviser,
Dr.Pete:

meet with Pete - ok
missing peak in last experiment - just what we wanted
annoying peak at 0.7 still there - hmmm
check out experimental set up - looks ok
find wiggly thing that's not supposed to be wiggly - hmmm
find leak - good
correct leak
annoying peak at 0.7 gone - great
set up power source - good
turn power source on
power source "on" light lights up - yea!
power source makes the right ticking noises - good
fiddle with voltage regulator - looks right
loud pop - huh?
flash of white light at ammeter scale - wow, pretty lights
no more voltage
no more joy

Pete & I looked at each other and sighed ...


I'm now experiencing the joys of trying to get someone at the U's electronics shop to come fix my power source.

Maybe I'll go mattress shopping today. If it was an hour earlier, I might have called Mr.Gopher and suggested doing lunch.

I have nothing else to do in the lab until the power source gets fixed ...

I might as well laugh - it doesn't make my nose run afterwards.
.

Charity begins at home: in your brain

Because other people besides evangelical TV assholes are also evil:

Here is a list of at least slightly reputable organizations which are providing aid to Haiti
Personally, based upon past records, if you feel more comfortable giving to a longer-lasting bigger named institution, try:
American Red Cross
Catholic Relief Services
Doctors Without Borders
Lutheran World Relief
Partners In Health

Caution: Bogus On-Line Scams about Haiti (or anywhere else):
Haitian Earthquake Relief Fraud Alert from the FBI.


More advice on intelligent charitable giving:

1. During disasters, stick to the Oldies but Goodies, give directly to the charity, do your research, don't give to governments known to be corrupt. or in this case, already completely dysfunctional
2. Avoid "new" charity websites registered within 24 hours of the disaster.
3. Pick the charity which has the lowest overhead - i.e., the maximum percent goes to the actual cause, and not administrative costs (read: big salaries for American fat cats)
4. Call the charity and ask questions; never feel pressured to give right now. I assure you, your $20 will not matter if it's right now, or tomorrow.
5. It's your money; give it where you want.
6. Realize that the costs of disasters are looooooooooooooooooong. They will still need your money tomorrow. and the day after and the day after and the day .... don't give till it hurts. Give in smaller amounts over a longer time. This is all about cash flow.
7. Diversification might be good risk management for your 401k; it might not be for charitable giving.


Check out charity groups with other sources:
Charity Watch - rates national (not local) organizations, but the details aren't on-line
Charity Navigator - their tips & resources are well done

Some of these only rate national groups; e.g. Catholic Relief Services isn't rated by Charity Network because they're exempt from certain IRS reporting (because they are the international arm of the Catholic Church, not domestic);
similarly, the Archdioscese of St. Paul isn't rated by Charity Watch because it isn't a national organization.

Websites debunking urban legends or scams should also be considered, if you aren't familiar with a group trying to pry your cold, hard earned cash out of your pocketbook.

Charity Watch listed its top-rated charities serving Haiti: 4 of the 5 I listed above all have A ratings (the highest). The 5th isn't listed with them.



And, by the way ... I strongly recommend finding some charitable organization which supports something you like. And then give to them. Being a routine donor helps the organization plan its budget. Some places have a monthly donation on-going payment plan. e.g. Minnesota Public Radio does, with an option to make it an on-going donation, rather than an annual one. It cuts down on their administrative costs by not needing to pester me or remind me to give them more money. (Although last Spring I did promise to give them more money when I get a job again - - they laughed and said that if I keep giving them worthwhile advice, they'd count it even.)

Evil, pure evil

People Are Stupid ... People are Trained to be Stupid ...

HSBC ad on BBC.com:
go to Moscow using your HSBC credit card ... check in to hotel with HSBC credit card ... go to room ... turn on tv ... everything is in Russian ... read book instead.

As a bibliophile, i'm all for reading rather than watching TV. But, seriously ... spend all the money to go to Russia, and then hide out in a Western-service hotel and totally insulate yourself from the fact you're in a foreign country. HSBC, btw, is totally friggin' evil.