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.

[review] The Soloist

Went to see The Soloist a few days ago. Music & Drama: a pleasant combination. Downey & Foxx: another pleasant combination. Author & Ms.Gopher: friends always a pleasant combination. Altogether, a pleasant experience. The Author wrote - of course - a nice review of the movie here.

Up here in lovely (and as of today mosquito-free) Land of the North Star, the question of ethics and medical treatment are the topic d'jour. (Although perhaps the topic of ethics & Hollywood & Good Samaritan-ism ought to be, too.) Anyway - movies

How much right do We (a.k.a. Society) have to dictate someone else's well-being? If someone is not demanding anything of Us, should we be able to demand anything of them in return?

An L.A. Times writer inadvertently meets a mentally ill, yet extremely talented, homeless musician. I'm wondering how to describe this person. Does our description reveal our prejudices? Which is the noun used here? Musician, homeless, or schizophrenic? Does it matter? At one point in the film, we see 'sanity' merging with 'insanity' with sufficient stress and stellar acting from Downey.

I don't recall anymore what the specific script prompt was, but it included the Lord's Prayer. I sincerely wish I could watch that 2 minutes of it again. The musician & reporter were in Skid Row to give The Viewer a montage of the misery of living on the streets and being God Awfully Poor. The recitation of the prayer had gotten to "... give us this day our daily bread..." as the camera is panning down the alley past a soup kitchen line. "... for thine is the kingdom ..." looking down a seemingly endless homeless shelter. Driving home (no doubt quite intentionally) the point that these people are the God's Kingdom as much as the Rich sitting on their therapists' couches explaining their financially motivated neuroses.

Unlike my friend The Author, who is concurrently A Musician, I am an enthusiast rather than a skilled musician. I wouldn't have recognized the specific pieces of Beethoven's music (in fact, I wouldn't have even recognized it as Beethoven). Being stupendously ignorant of the specifics of music theory or classification (is he Baroque?Romantic?HeavyMetal?Other?), I'm not sure if the choices of music were really the best available from J.S.'s extensive repertoire. They are stylistically apt, at any rate.

I'm not sure if the central point of the movie is the issues of mental illness & coping with society's expectations thereto - or whether it is about the relationship between two different men - or perhaps nothing at all. Will the musician get treatment? (maybe yes, maybe no) Will the reporter get a story? (definitely, this is based upon a book) Will Society act on the burgeoning poverty in L.A. (who are you kidding?) Perhaps the one aspect the most appealing is the depiction of the musician's descent into mental illness. This one string of the story is the most interesting. At what point is it recognized as illness? How does this effect the family cohesion? This topic could perhaps get its own movie, solo.

The soloist is whom? The isolated homeless man? The divorced reporter? Or any one of us in society who are inevitably cut off from a whole lot of the rest of society?

Gopher's Rating:
Definitely see it on video

Innovation v. Stultification

Is stultification a real word? I know stultifying is.

There's a video from a NASA astronaut, explaining where problems in innovation occur. Where good ideas go to die. This is fantastic - if you don't recognize any of these scenarios, it's because you're self employed.

in perspective

so, I really blew the first part of my final last night. Totally blew it. Great, so now I've got more pressure to study for this 2nd part, which is 20% of the grade. What to do?

Sit down w/ my grade & the class syllabus. What's my grade right now? How hard do I need to drive myself this morning & afternoon? Will I be able to get home to put up the Christmas tree, now that we have a functional tree stand?

Just to put things in perspective ... If I don't even take the exam, I'll get a C. This is not a passing grade, for grad school (B- is).

Just to put things in perspetive ... All I need to get a B- is 24%

By utter random chance, otherwise known as sheer dumb luck, I should be able to exceed this

ahhhh, the sound of stress departing

here we go again ... and again ...

following Wednesday night's post, which was a break in studying for my epidemiology final exam ... life seemed to be going better.

Wednesday night: found my wallet, when emptying my bag in preparation for studying, the fairies must have returned it, because sure as hell's hot, I know I looked in that damn pocket. Studying seemed to be going well. I found new stuff to study in preparation and figured it was not hopeless.

Thursday morning: We get the kids off to their respective locales.
9:10 a.m. I blew my nose yeah, no shit, this is relevant
9:11 a.m. My ear over-pressurizes, as happens sometimes when one blows one's nose.
9:30 a.m. on the train (which everyone here calls the "light rail" -- it's a train, people), my ear starts annoying me even more
9:50 a.m. am sitting in the student lounge eating a late breakfast & reading the news, and my ear hurts, pretty badly
10:10 I ask myself, what the hell am I doing sitting in the basement of a building housing the medical school, when the student walk-in clinic is across the street?
10:15 standing in the clinic, I have tears runing down my face
10:30, after begging for someone to see me, I'm crying
keep crying through the doctor's exam, no doubt contributing to the prescription for heavy narcotics. Apparently I have an ear infection
11:10 on the phone to Mr.Gopher, have gone past crying to actually sobbing
11:15 write a note to my Epi prof informing her that I won't be taking the final, and ask for her to let me take it on Monday (I assumed this would mean getting an incomplete)
11:17 write a note to my academic advisor, letting her know that my internship term paper would not actually be arriving on her desk Friday morning, and asking for an incomplete.
12-ish - finally at home, in bed, desperately waiting for the Vicodin to kick in. Eventually stop crying and fall asleep out of sheer exahustion & good drugs

3-ish - briefly rise to consciousness. Realize that jr.Gopher#2 had at least 5 ear infections before he turned 18 mo. God help him, is this the crap he dealt with? No wonder he kept waking up in the middle of the night screaming! I'm surprised he ever stopped! He didn't get wonderful painkillers?! The things we do to our children. I'll never take pediatric ear infections as de rigeur again.

4-ish - Epi prof tells me that I will be allowed to take the exam on Monday. No incomplete. yea.
5-ish - advisor (who failed to respond to at least 3 e-mails in the semester asking what I was supposed to do for the course, tells me on Wednesday morning that I need to turn in a paper no later than Friday) ... tells me that she'll give me an incomplete. not-so-yea.

Friday (yesterday): Jr.Gopher#1 is next door with Jr.Gopher#2 as usual on Fridays. 1-1/2 hour after dropping him off (i.e., walking through the foyer), I get a call: he's still got diarrhea, he can't stay. Jesus, Mary & Joseph! Give me patience! Are you kidding? Of course, I was still pretty stoned on Vicodin & wouldn't have gotten any studying done. But, I would have gotten a whole lot of sleeping done. And, of course, Mr.Gopher works late on Fridays. Did the boys go to bed at a reasonable hour? Well, 8:30, rather than 8 seems pretty reasonable, after our now-traditional popcorn & cold veggie dinner in front of a movie. Did the boys go to sleep at a reasonable hour? uh ... no

Saturday: Study? Are you kidding? I planned on spending the day with my family, delighting in the satisfactory discharge of my academic obligations. I'll be damned if I'll pass that up.

Saturday night: Study? Yes. Package arrived in today's post for Mr.Gopher, is hastily removed from view. 5 minutes later, he comes out and says, well, the hell with surprise, I need help dealing with this. Lo, and behold, he had purchased something I really liked from my wish list. A nice little posey ring. A nice, rather squashed posey ring. I think someone put it in a punch press, based on the sheer force which would have been needed to accomplish this damage. Although, given the damage to the outer package, the inner (inadequate) packing, and the invoice, I am kind of surprised that the ring wasn't squished a lot flatter. Scathing letter demanding restitution in contrast to their retarded return policy ... Study? Well, there is tomorrow, right?

Technically Sunday (12:06 a.m.): Well, I suppose I'll go find the text I'm supposed to read as the lector at Mass tomorrow ... um this ... morning.

here we go again ...

far too many of my friends will simply shake their heads and say, ‘well it sounds like her’

Yesterday: jr.Gopher #2 is diagnosed with Pink Eye. trans: no day-care. trans: mama doesn’t get to study for her impending final exam. I realize that I can’t find my wallet, last seen day before.

Today: There was an amazing biohazard clean up in the bathroom. Taking jr.Gopher #1 to pre-school/kinderstube results in his teacher telling me that diarrhea caused by potentially microbiological causes (rather than diet) means he can’t stay. So much for spending the day studying the difference between case-control and cross-sectional study design, trying to remember which one can calculate quantitative causation.

Killing time while waiting for the store to open, where I had last seen my wallet, is no longer a matter of sitting in a coffee shop, due to the limited patience of my recently acquired companion. Ah, I think, I’ll just go to the McD’s on Hiawatha, since it has a play area, and I can still have a cup of joe.

Approaching the intersection of 54th and Chicago, a monster-sized gray mechanical object zooms into my peripheral vision, with just enough sub-conscious brain processing to realize it’s a car. I screamed. Subsequently, I had a salient personal experience to demonstrate the efficacy and purpose of seat belts to jr.Gopher. I also now have a bashed-in rear quarter panel. When did I call my insurance company and down-grade my insurance? Ummm, that would be last week. So much for the $400 savings this billing period.

I got lost en route to McD’s (I didn’t realize the Minnehaha Parkway went under Hiawatha). There was no longer really any reason to kill time, but as I had told jr.Gopher he could play there, we continue on. After all, what else did I have to do?

Did I mention that I have a final tomorrow? Did I mention that I haven’t had much time to study for it?

Of course, neither store which could have had my wallet has it. After a more thorough excavation of my room, I’ve concluded it isn’t at home, either.

Sure, I can go to the DMV and get a new license - at least I can get a piece of paper stating that I have one, pending its arrival. I can call the bank & credit card company to cancel the cards. I can get Mr.Gopher to get me cash. My bus pass is only valid until the 31st anyway. But .... my student ID? I need it to get into the student lounge, where I planed to spend all day today & tomorrow studying for my epidemiology final exam. And spend tomorrow evening actually taking the 3 hour exam.

Did I mention that I have a final tomorrow?

I need the ID card to get into my laboratory to actually do the research, too. That, however, is far less important. Do I think it is remotely feasible to replace my ID card in an hour or so today? ummm ... to put it bluntly ... no.

Tomorrow: Say a prayer I do well on this jinxed final. If I do well, I’ll get an A in the class, which should do wonders to balance the crappy grade I’m getting in one of my other classes. Sigh ... time to make lunch.

What a retard, part 1

Woods, who held up a sign that read "Tropic Thunder is insulting and hurtful to me and others," was eventually moved to tears by the whole experience. "I won't be quiet and let movies make fun of people," he told the manager of the movie theater and the arresting officers. "People who make money making fun of being retarded should be ashamed of themselves," he added.

So, where do we go from here? Are all of the good offensive words going to be gone?

If he won't let movies make fun of people, we'll just have to stop making comedies. Next time they have someone be the butt of a joke over having big ears, I guess the "I have big ears, and you're being mean to me" crowd will march on the Lagoon in Uptown. How about you just accept the fact that you're going to be offended occasionally.

Grow up. Be offended. Get over it.

What's with all of this happy "respect others' opinions" hypocrisy? doesn't that mean they get to respect my opinion that the use of the word 'retard' can be appropriate? Or is this a case of "I can call myself [insert offensive word here], but you can't"?

Why can't a word be used with two different meanings? Peter told me that some organization advocating the rights of the disabled was calling for a boycott of the movie. Of course, I asked why. "For using the R-word." I stared blankly at him, waiting.... Upon hearing the explanation, my immediate response was "what retard came up with that idea?" Did I mean to be offensive? Well, I suppose so.

Am I oppressive to the rights of the physically or mentally disabled? No. Are they mentally retarded? Yes. Is that a PC term anymore? Apparently not. Is it an accurate use of the English language? Yes. I remember the majority of the kids in high school calling Ronnie & Donnie retards. It was never meant "accurately"; it was meant as a derogatory term. Not necessarily of those two boys personally, but a derogatory opinion of those who are mentally limited below the norm (how's that for a 'retard' replacement?)

Maybe we can lobby to have "normal" removed from vernacular English. I'm offended, because I'm not normal, and everyone uses the word like it's a good thing to be normal. This is emotionally oppressing me into a false sense of self-worthlessness due to my inability to maintain some sort of arbitrary status quo implied by your use of 'normal'.



So I wrote this a week or so ago. Subsequent:
Action film parody "Tropic Thunder" held onto the top spot at the North American box office for a third straight week ...
I guess the rest of America is totally insensitive or perhaps oblivious to the cultural bomb of one word.