The story of a cancer survivor, part 2

I first learned that I had cancer on June 23, 2011, and I took some preliminary steps at that time to bring myself back to health again. Those steps were documented in an article that I published on July 1, 2011:

the sky is falling

Not long after my visit to the doctor, I retired from my job as a car salesman, and less than two months after that, I moved to Arizona.

Retirement is a nice stage of life to be in, but if you retire at the age of 63 (which I did) you immediately run into a couple of vexing problems. The first, of course, is that you have less money to live on, which is why I have un-retired a few times since then, and currently work for the local school district.

The other problem is that I no longer had any health insurance, which moved the date for my cancer surgery until a month or so after I turned 65 years old (more than a year later), and had obtained coverage from Medicare. I purchased a Medicare supplemental plan recommended by AARP at the end of the year.

The second problem illustrates why the Affordable Care Act, for all its faults, was long overdue in our country. There’s a bit of blame on both sides as to why the roll out didn’t go as smoothly as it should have, and two of the reasons are listed below:

1) The House Homeland Security Committee has discovered that the government website used to sign people up for insurance coverage had been subjected to at least 16 cyber attacks by “Obamacare” opponents, and at least some of the attacks were designed specifically to deny access to the website.

2) The other problem with the Affordable Care Act was that the administration knew as early as March that there were problems with HealthCare.gov, but failed to correct them in time for the October 1 launch date. The government has initiated some procedures to improve the enrollment process, and have detailed those steps on the website.

The fact that the Medicare Plan D coverage that was started during the Bush administration had significant “teething” problems early on is small comfort to the folks who initially had trouble getting on the website. Medicare itself, of course, had a shaky start in 1965, and Mitt Romney’s universal health plan in Massachusetts took a while to become fully operational.

None of the paragraphs above, though, will help to explain my “K-mart face”, so a little more information is required.

Apart from the fact that the surgery on my back last fall removed the basal cell carcinoma that I had acquired, it also highlighted the fact that I had VERY HIGH BLOOD pressure, which led to a visit to a local cardiologist later on the same day. On a daily basis, I now take medication for both my blood pressure and my cholesterol, and both areas are now under control.

I pretty much forgot about the “pre-cancerous” cells on my face until the end of summer, when a bout of eczema encouraged me to make a trip to a local dermatologist. A week’s worth of a treatment with a tube of medicated cream (which cost $54) cured the eczema, but it led to an appointment to have the “pre-cancerous” cells on my face taken care of.

That appointment occurred on Friday, November 22.

The procedure used to remove my facial cancer is called the BLU-U light treatment, which is what I called it “the K-Mart special”. After an initial treatment with a Levuan Kerastick was allowed to be absorbed into my skin for about an hour, my eyes were covered with protective goggles, and I was exposed to bright fluorescent lights for 16 minutes and 40 seconds. The end result is that the cancer cells have been fried away, but I’ll be sunburned for about a week, and will be unable to shave for a while.

Many folks who are covered by Medicare may not be aware of the fact that Medicare will pay 100% of the cost of a yearly “wellness” visit, which I took advantage of about a week ago. I’ll be getting the lab results in the mail sometime this coming week, but a phone call from my doctor the other day assured me that I had no significant problems to worry about.

I’m as reluctant as anyone to spend money from my tightly managed monthly budget on doctors and dentists, but my recent experiences have convinced me that it’s important to do so. My experiences also reinforce why it’s important that EVERYBODY had health coverage, even if the current program has some flaws. As one pundit said recently, “you wouldn’t throw out your ice cream because you couldn’t find your spoons”.

Enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday, but try to stay away from K-Mart on that day. A lot of their stores will be open at 6 a.m., which almost seems sacrilegious, and calling it “gray Thursday” instead of Black Friday doesn’t make it more palatable.

If you’re REALLY health conscious, and want to avoid “genetically modified” turkeys, you’ll be happy to know that there ARE specialty stores across the country that will sell you “heritage turkeys”, which are significantly different than the large-breasted birds that we are accustomed to.

You no longer have to worry about cranberries, since the substance that caused the cranberry scare of 1959 was banned long ago, but go easy on the coffee. An average cup of coffee contains hundreds of natural-occurring chemicals, and at least 80 of them (in large doses) will initiate cancer in laboratory animals.

Bon appetit

The Thanksgiving dinner that can’t be beat

Up until about 10 years ago, I still owned the vinyl record shown below:

Since my Dual turntable hadn’t worked for years, it seemed to be a good time to clean out the balance of my record albums and the non-functioning record player, all of which were happily purchased by a baby boomer that we knew in Wisconsin.

I was still in college when Arlo Guthrie played the song in front of a live audience for the first time at the Newport Folk Festival in 1967, and I’ve listened to it hundreds of times since them.

Since I was stationed on the East Coast for basic training and A.I.T, I took the opportunity to travel through Stockbridge, Massachusetts on my way back home to Minnesota.

I took pictures of the church and its bell tower, the original location of Alice Restaurant, and the police station, but decided to not visit the town dump.

The original location of the restaurant is STILL a restaurant, and it’s now known as the Stockbridge Café. The restaurant has gotten good reviews, and has a fairly extensive menu, but you can no longer get whatever you want when you walk in the door.

Alice Brock, who had been the librarian at Arlo’s boarding school in Stockbridge before opening her restaurant, now owns an art studio in Princetown, Massachusetts.

The church and its bell tower where purchased by Arlo Guthrie in 1991, and converted to the Guthrie Center, an interfaith meeting center. The center provides free weekly lunches for families living with AIDS/HIV, and hosts an annual "Thanksgiving Dinner that Can’t be Beat” to raise money to cure Huntington’s disease (which was the disease that killed Arlos’s father, Woody.)

Arlo still sings the song today, and still has a moderately active tour schedule, which you can view at his website below. Like most of us, he’s a lot grayer, and more wrinkled, than he used to be, but he’s still fun to listen to.

Arlo’s website

Like his dad, he often sings songs against social injustice, and actively campaigned for George McGovern in 1984. Since then, he’s become a registered Republican (gasp!) , based on the theory that “We had enough good Democrats. We need a few more good Republicans”. In view of the fact that a lot of folks today view the Republican Party of today through the prism of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, his current position actually makes some sense.

If you’re in the mood for a little nostalgia, you can listen to the entire album again by clicking on the link below. If it doesn’t come on right away, just wait a minute, and it will come around again.

do you remember Group W?

Day of the dead

On October 31, 1994, the city of Chicago experienced a torrential downpour.

Although the home town football team is famous for beating its opponents in inclement weather, the Bears managed to get trounced by the Green Bay Packers 33 to 6 later that evening at Soldier Field.

About an hour after returning from a business lunch with my new boss, John Platt, I was drying my socks in the microwave (seriously) when the phone call came from Minnesota. My mother called to let me know that my dad had had a heart attack while having lunch at their little house on 3rd Street in St. Paul. Although an army of paramedics arrived just a few minutes after she had called them, it was too late to save my dad.

Just as I think of my dad on February 3 (his birthday) , I also am reminded of him every year on the 31st of October, because that is when he left us for a new and better location. Although Halloween is usually a day of joy (especially for the younger generation) it always carries a sense of melancholy for my sister and me.

If you dig deeper into the origins of the holiday, Halloween SHOULD be a time of joy, not only for those who have lost loved ones on October 31, but other folks as well.

Dia de Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a three day Mexican festival that has ancient origins, possibly going back to the pre-Columbian times of 3000 years ago. In modern Mexico, the holiday focuses on family and friends getting together to pray for departed loved ones. The purpose of the meetings is to encourage visits by folks who are no longer with us, and the gatherings generally include offerings such as favorite foods, beverages, and memorabilia.

The offerings are called ofrendas, and may sometimes include items that would likely be considered unusual by most people. For reasons that I’ve explained previously, I brought a bag of oranges and 2 quarters to the ofrenda offering at a local church a few years ago.

Mexico isn’t the only country that celebrates the Day of the Dead, since it is celebrated in a number of countries in Latin America, Europe, and Asia. In 2004, I was stranded for 4 days in Hong Kong due to the fact that I had traveled there just before the Qingming holdiday (also called Grave Sweeping Day). Since the government office that I needed to go to for my visa was closed on the following Monday (Qingming) I had to wait until the following Tuesday to obtain the paperwork that I needed to return legally to my residence in Guangzhou, China.

I’ll never know for sure, but I strongly suspect that all the energy generated by the Day of the Dead offerings around the world will generate enough energy to bring the ghost of Larry Brennan a little closer to earth again.

After all, to quote one of my cousins (at his funeral), he was a really good guy.

yes, we have no bananas

Here’s a quick quiz for you.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is:

1) the name of a religious singing group

2) the lunch special at the local St. Vincent DePaul shelter

3) a country

If you didn’t pick #3, don’t feel bad. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is indeed a country, but that’s a fact that’s not known to a lot of people. It’s not a very big country, it doesn’t have a lot of people, and it has a fairly tiny GDP.

It’s total area is 150 square miles, roughly 2/3 the size of the city of Tucson. It has a total population of 120,000 people, roughly the same size as the city of Surprise, Arizona, and its GDP is $1.259 billion. To put that in perspective, its GDP is less than the Tea Party caused our country to lose per day during the recent shutdown.

Formerly a British colony, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines become fully independent in October of 1979. It is located in the eastern Caribbean, and is a very lovely place. The video below will allow you to take a tour of the islands that make up the country:

let’s take a tour

Since it is located in the Caribbean, it is subject to the tropical storms that are very common in this area - and therein lies the problem.

The main source of income for the country is banana production, although tourism and a secretive financial sector also make their contributions to the economy. Volcanic eruptions, and fairly frequent hurricanes, have caused extensive damage to the country’s banana plantations on occasion, causing the local plantation owners to sing a song that was first made popular in 1922:

yes, we have no bananas

The country came to light this morning, when it became the “topic of the day” on Bing. In the event that you aren’t familiar with Bing, it’s a search engine that was unveiled by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in May of 2009.

The country’s reliance on a single crop for most of its income mirrors the problems faced by the island nation of Nauru, which is the third smallest country in the world. When the phosphate mines that fueled the county’s economy petered out, the country briefly got support from the Russian mafia, but eventually switched to a reliance on tourism to sustain itself.

Few of us will ever get to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, but the recent filming of the Pirates of the Caribbean pictures has led to an increase in both visitors and investors, which should bode well for the country.

Eventually, the country will figure out a way to further diversify its economy, but until that happens, consider this option:

What a GREAT PLACE for a vacation !!

The Crisco kid

A couple of weeks ago, Sharon made another batch of her world famous chocolate chip cookies, filling the house with a marvelous aroma, and replenishing the supply of tasty treats in our glass cookie jars.

Naturally, she used Crisco as one of the ingredients, which got me to pondering the following question:

Where did Crisco come from?

In order to keep fats solid at normal storage temperature, it is necessary to hydrogenate the substance. The hydrogenation process was discovered in the late 19th Century, and was patented by a man named Wilhelm Normann in 1903. The patent was acquired by the Proctor and Gamble company a few years later. Although the original purpose of the patent was to produce soap, Proctor and Gamble used it to produce the world’s first shortening made entirely of vegetable oil. The name “Crisco” is actually a modification of the phrase “crystallized cottonseed oil”.

Even though the formula has been changed in recent years to reduce the fat content in Crisco, some nutritionists still feel it may not be good for your health, but it’s better than the alternative.

Lard.

Lard is pig fat in both its rendered and engendered form, and can be obtained from any part of the pig as long as there is a high concentration of fatty tissue. Despite its higher fat content (as compared to vegetable shortening) lard is still popular with many chefs and bakers because of its distinctive taste and wide range of applications. Rumor has it that lard was even used in Mrs. Wagner’s pies, which were made famous by Simon and Garfunkel in 1968. Sadly, even though Mrs. Wagner’s was the largest pie bakery in the country in 1940, the company went out of business in July of 1969.

Crisco contains less total fat than lard, even though it has a higher amount of polyunsaturated fat. Surprisingly, it also has less total fat than most other vegetable oils, including olive oil.

Trying to determine the health effects of hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils can be enormously difficult, but it appears that the real villain is something called “trans fats”, which can result from the hydrogenation process. Even though the can of Crisco in our pantry includes both fully and partially hydrogenated palm oil, it has ZERO trans fat.

Those delicious chocolate chip cookies in our cookie jars may not be the healthiest way to end a meal, but I’d heartily recommend having a couple for dessert on occasion.

After all, life is short.

Play ball !

The 1963 World Series started almost exactly 50 years ago - on October 2, 1963. The Series pitted the New York Yankees against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Ultimately, the Dodgers prevailed, ending the hopes of the Yankees for winning three World Series in a row. It was the third title in franchise history for the Dodgers, and it was the first time in the history of baseball that the Yankees were swept in a World Series in only 4 games.

In 2013, the World Series won’t even start until October 23, and could last as long as Halloween, a full eight weeks into the start of the NFL season. Sadly, the World Series no longer generates the excitement that it did in 1963, which prompted a column in today’s New York Times:

is the game over?

Baseball is no longer “America’s pastime”, and it is now less popular than either professional football or professional basketball. The last eight years have produced the seven least watched Series in the history of baseball.

There WAS a time when baseball was a lot more important to most Americans. As James Earl Jones intoned in the 1984 movie, “The Natural”,

“the memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces .. the one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball .. Americans rolled by like steamrollers …, they’ve been erased, rebuilt, and erased again but baseball has marked the time .. the field, the game .. It’s a part of our past .. It reminds us of all that was once good, and could be again”

The irony of “America’s pastime” is that the balls that are used in play aren’t even made in America, and haven’t been for more than 30 years. Today, they are made in Costa Rica by workers who make $1.60 an hour, and produce roughly 200 baseballs a week.

Baseballs have been made in very much the same manner for over 100 years, but very few of us have seen HOW they are made. The link below (courtesy of YouTube) will let you watch baseballs being born:

how are baseballs made?

The Arizona Diamondbacks are arguably the most successful expansion team in the history of baseball, since the team won a World Series title in 2001, their 4th year in operation. In spite of that fact, though, I have yet to watch even ONE Diamondbacks game, and I’ll probably always be a Chicago Cubs fan, in spite of their years of futility.

One of the most famous play in the history of baseball was the Tinker to Evers to Chance triple play, which happened way back in 1907. However, THE most famous play in baseball was actually performed by another Cub, Rick Monday, in 1976, and should be watched again:

who is Rick Monday?

It’s easy to get caught up with the nonsense in Congress, the strife overseas, and the bickering over Obamacare, but there IS a way to make the world a more enjoyable place.

The smell of freshly cut grass, the crack of a bat, the roar of the crowd, and the taste of a ball park hotdog can chase away a lot of tension, and make you believe, at least for a while, the words used by James Earl Jones:

“life used to be good, and can be again … “

Let’s play ball !

Injun summer

Today is the Autumnal Equinox, one of the two times of the year when the the length of the day is the same as the length of the night. In the spring, the day is called the vernal equinox.

In the northern hemisphere, the autumnal equinox signals the start of a magical season called Indian summer. Leaves on trees start changing color, evening temperatures become a bit crisper, and Mother Nature gives us a handful of glorious warm and sunny days before the first snowflakes flutter to the ground. Due to the tilting of the earth’s axis, the full moon at this time of the year appears larger than normal, resulting in what many folks call the Harvest Moon:

Over 100 years ago, a man named John T. McCutcheon published a story in the Chicago Tribune that he titled “Injun Summer”. Some of the terms used in the story might be considered politically incorrect today, but reading the story always brings a smile to my face because it reminds of simpler times a long , long time ago. The full text of the story can be viewed by clicking on the link below:


To celebrate the autumnal equinox, I plan to have a Samuel Adams Octoberfest beer for lunch, after which I’m planning to do a little spelunking in some ancient caves a short drive north of town.

To keep the day fresh in your memory, I’d recommend that you listen to a song called “Shine on Harvest Moon”, that was originally released in 1909, two years after “Injun Summer” was first published. Scores of artists have done covers since that time, but Rosemary Clooney performed what I would consider to be the best version:

"Shine on Harvest Moon”