Twenty Chemotherapies Later

If you are wondering where we've been, it's a place in Boston called Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

After being clear of Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma for 8 years, tumors were found in the gallbladder I needed to be removed due to a serious infection brought about by a blocked duct.

Unlike the Lymphoma, this is not curable cancer. As a highly aggressive tumor, the chances of long-term survival are slim.  The options were surgery with chemotherapy or don't do anything and just let it kill me.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a kind that gives up easily.

We opted for the surgery followed by chemotherapy. The surgery removed all visible tumors but there were still tumor cells which developed over a year. Then we started standard chemotherapy which had a minimal effect, then we tried one possible alternative which too had a minimal effect.

The second alternative, based on the existence of a DNA variation found in people susceptible to breast cancer has slowed the tumor growth considerably. That has been the twenty bi-weekly chemotherapies I've had so far and am scheduled to continue until it too stops working.

And it will but we don't know when.  Isn't that true of life in general?

I have visited death several times in my life.  I call them my practice runs.  One of my favorite buttons from the 60's, after Frodo Lives!, is "He who isn't being born is busy dying."  I will continue being born every morning when I wake up until the morning I don't.

-30-

Following the Patriots-Texans Game on Google

Without having to explain why, just understand I have to follow each Patriots game on Google before we can watch it on TiVo.

I am listening to Dean Martin singing Ain’t That a Kick in the Head? on Pandora at the same time. 

If you know the score at this time, 2333, you would see how this is the most ironic song I could be hearing right now.

Two minute warning!  It looks like we have a chance to win…

No. Wait. The Texans scored? Nail biter?

Not yet…

Nope! Now we can watch it.  Wait… where did everyone go?

Oh, to bed.

There’s always tomorrow.

-30-

Civilization on Hold

If I step back for a moment and look at the state of the world, it's looking oh so uncivilized. The thing is it probably is much more so than it was 50 years ago.

Our ever widening ability to catch a glimpse in real time of it all, instead of through the filtered delay of weekly or even monthly magazines, is what's making it seem so wild.

If The Queen spit out of the window of the Royal Carriage as it crossed the Thames I'd hear about inside the hour followed soom by the opinions of everyone for river ecologists to organizers of the spit championship.
There would too, I guarantee, be footage of the act on YouTube.

To escape all this, we will be on the coast of Maine for the holiday weekend..
-30-

I Thought Posting to Posterous Automatically

I may not have is set up correctly, but I thought Posterous automatically sent the information loaded in the email to the other linked locations, such as Twitter and Blogger. It would appear not.

Here in New England there was a report of possible snow tonight into tomorrow morning. I have to give a speech at 1000 tomorrow. I can make it there whatever the weather, but certainly, if the snow does fall, will expect a smaller audience.

-30-

Posted via email from grazing's posterous

The Town Meeting Went Well

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I resisted the urge to speak until someone said “Vernal Pool.”  Without thinking I was to my feet saying the question had not been answered.

Then it was answered and I was done for the night.

When the budget was moved to a meeting in June, this years New England Town Meeting lost interest.

I am sure they kept the quorum for the rest of the street acceptances and revisions and spell checks, but I could not stay knowing I have to travel out of State tomorrow.

For the safety of all involved, I retired from the auditorium knowing I saw my civic duty and did it.
-30- 

LiveJournal Tags: Town Meeting

Town Meeting Tomorrow – Church Meeting Today

It’s meeting season in New England.  Everyone wants to get the business done before we all leave for balmier climes.

A decade and one half ago, I was fascinated by the pure, democratic process of the New England Town Meeting.  It had been memorialized by Norman Rockwell’s painting of the the rough hewn farmer wearing  his LL Bean blue and black checked shirt about to make a speech.

The late Tip O’Neil said that all politics were local.  This was about as local as it can get. 

Then I became deeply involved in the politics of the situation.  I learned the back story, the cliques, the ruling class of people who never missed a town meeting. 

This small percentage, who read the Town Administrators reports, who watched the Selectman’s meeting on the local Public Access cable station, these well informed individuals were making the decisions on how the town should be managed.

Until an “issue” arose.  Especially if it was a NIMBY issue.  Than the fly-by-night members of the Town Meeting would appear.  They certainly had the right, as registered voters, to come and have their say.

The wise Board of Selectman would recognize these issues and put them at the end of the warrant.  If they were going to fill the seat, they might as well do the work.

When I first attended these meetings, I was morally outraged by anyone who would move the question, effectively shutting down further debate.  I thought everyone should have their say.

Then, after a few years of hearing people speak just to hear their own voice, repeating issues and questions already handled and answered.  I might just have become the record holder on moving the question.

The New England Church meeting, attended by the same people who come well prepared for the Town Meeting, is the same in miniature.

The new roof, passed, the new boiler, passed, supporting important social issues, passed. What brand of coffee to use at the social hour after the service, one entire hour of a debate which includes South American Politics, global warning, quotes from Silent Spring and Atlas Shrugged sprinkled with a few war stories about how it was always done before.

Move the question! 

Thankfully the newcomers see the value of this parliamentarian lifeline, leave their moral indignation at home, and get us all out of there in time to attend tomorrow’s other meeting.

Welcome to New England.

-30- 

LiveJournal Tags: Town Meeting

The Patriots vs. Pittsburgh

I know we have gone on and on about Google Reader.  There is one thing more powerful.  The New England Patriots.  There is no way, at 1615 this afternoon, I will be anywhere near this laptop at kick off time.

The rest of the world my hate the Patriots, but this is New England.

Expect comments after the game.

-30-

Whew!

The surrounding tension in New England has lessoned, but not dissipated. New Englanders have become spoiled, with the World Series and all of the record book numbers surrounding members of the Patriots. They won the game, but few points, but, as it said by Patriots fans, a win is a win.

The Colts didn't score the highest against New England, but the spread was much shorter. That seems to mean something. Don't ask me.
-30-

Powered by ScribeFire.

First the Nor'easter and now the Colts

Today we sat around in the morning waiting for the promised Nor'easter. It came. There was wind and rain, fallen branches and a power outage or two. Pretty much as expected.

Tomorrow everyone will be sitting around waiting until 4:15 in the afternoon. That's when the Colts should be running out on to the field. I honestly believe most of the people here in New England are worried more about tomorrow than they were today.

We're used to Nor'Easters. Where not that used to having out team play an undefeated team, going in undefeated ourselves.

I wish I could ignore it. Not being that big a fan of organized sports, you think I could. It would have been easier to ignore the windows rattling and the trees falling today, all day.
-30


Del.icio.us : NE Patriots

Powered by Zoundry