Kurt

He's tall, but he hopes to achieve more in life than just that.

Guilt Calculus

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Now that I finally made the move and mothballed Marrowish, I feel a wonderful sense of relief and freedom. Instead of feeling guilty about not posting articles regularly on two sites, I only have to feel guilty about one. That’s a quick and easy 50% reduction of guilt in my life.

Not bad.

However, because I’ve integrated all of Marrowish’s posts and what not into this site, there is now much work for me to do: fix link structures, update categories, delete unwanted posts, realign the pages, and on and on. Actually, blog maintenance and upkeep is something I enjoy and when doing it, I can lose hours and hours of my life without even noticing.

I think it’s fair to say that one reason I enjoy doing it so much is because it gives me an excuse not to write. Of course when I’m not writing when I know I should be…more guilt.

Not to mention all the hours I sink into trying to learn GIMP, the open source, Photoshop-like photo editing software I use. I don’t know what it is about photo editing software, but it kicks my butt. Which is why it is so hard for me to create decent looking banners and logos. Which is why the ones I do create tend to look like crap. Which is why I’m constantly changing them.

I find that my restless indecisiveness nicely compliments my resolute procrastination.

I don’t get much traffic here so I know all of the changes and upgrades I make mostly go unnoticed; but I’m sure at least a couple of inadvertent visitors must have noticed that I have had about 5000 different banners on this site in the past month.

The good news is, I think I’m finally getting the hang of GIMP and finally getting the site somewhat presentable so hopefully I will be spending less time monkeying around with all the maintenance and banner editing and more time writing. Which means, of course…less guilt.

Though…I have been meaning to learn more about the intricacies of search engine optimization.

Sayonara Marrowish

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[notice]Because I am no longer going to blog at my Marrowish website, I just imported all of its articles, pages, and comments into this site. The following Marrowish article discusses my reasons behind the change.[/notice]

I’ve been thinking about doing this for a while now and now is as good as time as any: I am going to suspend blogging here at Marrowish and blog only at my other site BOJIKI.

I’m doing this for a couple of reasons:

The primary reason is that things have radically changed for me since starting Marrowish back in December 2009: now that the cancer is gone and I have this Lung GVHD/Bronchiolitis Obliteran thingy, things just don’t feel the same for me around here–I feel differently about my relationship with the Lung GVHD than I did with the leukemia for some reason, which maybe I’ll try to explore and write about later at my other site; also, I’ve changed a lot since starting this blog, both physically (I certainly don’t look much like that guy anymore in the banner photo) and mentally–I’m ready to move on.

Sayonara Marrowish

Another reason I’m doing this is because I’m lazy–I’m tired of managing two sites. I don’t intend on taking this site down, so everything written to date will stay up indefinitely, or at least until the evil Prednisone overlord who resides in my head forces me to take it down. And I will still write about Marrowish-type issues–I will just be doing it at BOJIKI instead (look for the “Marrowish” tag in the Tag Cloud or articles filed in the “Health” Category).

In addition to this site, I am also going to suspend tweeting at my Marrowish twitter account. If you want to follow my health updates, along with any of the other BS I tweet about, like updates about my books and other writings, as well as my musings about current events, you’ll need to follow me at twitter.com/kurtbrindley.

This place, and especially all of you who stopped by here to offer your support, prayers, and encouragement, really helped me cope with some crazy stuff this past year or so and I am very, very grateful for it.

I look forward to seeing you all over at BOJIKI.

OK. That’s it. Sayonara.

Stimulating News

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Ever since mid-December 2010, I have been getting light headed whenever I stand or lean over. A couple of times I have come pretty close to passing out. The last checkup I had the doc took my blood pressure lying down and it was 135 over 70 something. He then had me stand up and took it again. It was 110 over 60 something. A pretty significant drop.

One of the many side effects of prednisone, the steroid I take to try to stop the deterioration of my lungs, is that it causes sodium retention. Because of this, the wife and I have really been cautious about my sodium intake, trying to keep it as low as possible. The doc thought that my low sodium intake was causing the light headedness so he recommended that I up my sodium intake a bit to see if that helps. I didn’t think it was the sodium and I let him know, but I said I would give it a try anyway since that meant I could eat more pickles.

After having a couple of days to reflect, the doc decided he wanted me to take a Cortisol Stimulation Test, or Stim Test as it’s referred to in the business. Basically, all the test consists of is drawing my blood, testing my cortisol levels, then injecting me with something that stimulates my adrenal glands, and then at the 30 minute and 60 minute periods after the stimulation, drawing my blood and testing the cortisone levels again. Because the adrenal glands were stimulated, the level of cortisone should be higher.

I just received an email from my doc that says: Your Cortisol stim test was normal response. There is sufficient amount of Cortisol, according to the test, to protect you against orthostatic hypotension [dizziness].

That’s good news. However, even after increasing my sodium intake, I still getting dizzy when standing. Any of you smart people out there have any ideas what may be causing this? My gut is telling me it’s just a reaction to the cocktail of medicines I take every day but if you have any other ideas, please let me know.

Wishful Thinking

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There have been many o’ mornings throughout my life that I have laid in bed, fighting with the snooze button on the alarm clock, wishing that something would happen in my life that would make work go away forever.

We all know the old saw: Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.

Well, I got my wish.

I just didn’t expect it to be answered in the form of a debilitating lung disease.

I was hoping more for…oh, I don’t…newfound riches…being elected king for life on a small tropical island…alien abduction…just about anything other than what I actually got.

But as the new saw goes: It is what it is.

So now what?

Before the lung disease, I was messing around with that leukemia thingy for the past year and it had kept me and my family plenty busy. I was back and forth to the hospital so much and feeling so crappy I didn’t have the time or effort to do much more than sit around, take my meds, and feel sorry for myself.

But just when I was starting to feel somewhat like what I used to feel like before all that leukemia thingy…just when I was beginning to ponder what it was going to be like returning to a normal life (normal meaning back to the daily morning battles with the alarm clock, the cursed commutes, and, of course, work)…just then…without any warning…BOOM…the doctor dropped the bomb on me.

Lung disease.

A lifetime with the constant feeling of slow suffocation.

A lifetime of high, daily doses of steroids.

A lifetime with the constant threat of diabetes and of osteoporosis.

A lifetime with a degraded immune system.

And, by the way, a lifetime of no more work.

I didn’t see that coming.

So much for my dream of helping to build a small company into a megarich, international conglomerated corporation and becoming rich enough to buy a professional sports franchise.

I guess I’ll just have to stash that dream away with my other unrealized dream of becoming an international rock star.

It all still hasn’t really sunk in yet.

I’m only forty-five years old. Regardless of my disease, I plan on hanging around for a very long time.

What the heck is a guy who has reluctantly been holding some form of drudgery…er, I mean, a job…since he first started delivering newspapers sometime around the time our nation celebrated its bicentennial birthday supposed to do with all of his newly “free” time?

What the heck am I supposed to do with myself for the next however many years I have left on this rock?

Well, I do have other yet unrealized dreams.

One of them is to write.

Not just bloggery writing like I am doing right now.

I mean to really write.

To write books.

And not just to write them.

To have them published.

And not just to publish them but to write them in a way that people want to read them.

I want to write in such a way that enables me to be able to proudly call myself a writer…An Author!…and not feel like a creepy, amateurish dork when I do.

So that’s what I’m doing.

I’m writing.

I’ve written.

I’ve written a novel called THE SEA TRIALS OF AN UNFORTUNATE SAILOR.

I’ve written a collection of poetry called POEMS FROM THE RIVER.

They will be available via e-book and pdf on (fingers crossed) February 19, 2011.

You can read a synopsis and first chapter of the book at bojiki.com/book.

But you know what? I wrote most of the novel and the poetry collection before I had all this free time that I now have. I wrote them slowly, sporadically, painfully, over a fifteen-year or so period when I was a working class stiff.

Now that I can fully devote myself to writing I should be able to blissfully write for hour after hour every day, right?

I should be able to crank out a novel every six months, or so, right?

Well, maybe…but, I have quickly discovered that writing fulltime is hard.

I am finding it hard to be disciplined enough to write every day.

It’s hard to sit down with laptop in hand…er, I mean on lap…and to think of stuff that other people might want to read.

I am finding that writing is like…

work!

Back when I was writing while I was still working out in the real world, writing was more like a hobby. I didn’t have to do it. I did it because it was fun…or at least cathartic.

It was fun writing crappy poems and crappy short stories and a crappy novel because I didn’t have to worry about feeding my children from the proceeds of their sales. I could pretend I was a writer without actually having to make the commitment of calling myself a writer.

Sure it stung a bit every time I received a rejection slip from publishers, but who cared. I still had a day job.

But now I have no cover. I have found that writing full time is hard work and I have no fallback position.

Well, I’m on disability so I guess I could always fall back onto the position of doing nothing. Do nothing but sit around, collect my monthly payments, and…

wait…

for…

something…

to…

happen.

Zzzz…

Who the hell wants to do nothing for the rest of your life when you have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to recreate yourself into whatever you want to be (provided that whatever you want to be can mostly be accomplished within the confines of your home…and the internet)?

I have declared that I want to be a writer.

And I find that’s it’s hard work.

And now I feel a little exposed.

And a little vulnerable.

And a lot like a creepy, amateurish dork.

But I don’t wish for it to be any other way.

Because we all know to be careful of what we wish for, right?

Hope for the Best, Plan for the Worst

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I joined the navy in 1983, which means that I served for about ten years when it was illegal for homosexuals to enter the military.

Even though it was illegal, I think it is safe to assume that there still were homosexuals serving during that time; but back then since I was young and singularly focused on doing all those things that sailors have always been renowned for doing…you know what I’m talking about: a yo ho ho and a bottle of rum and all that other fun stuff (wink)…I did not pay the issue of homosexuals in the military much mind.  And as far as I can remember, neither did any of the sailors I hung out with back then.

Thinking back, I remember working with several individuals during the first ten years of my enlistment who were assumed to be gay, but it was no big deal.  It was no big deal to me, to my friends, or to the command where we all worked.  The assumed homosexuals came to work and did their job the best they could, just like everyone else and that was pretty much it.

The only time when  my group of friends and I did talk about homosexuals in regard to their homosexuality was probably when we were making juvenile fun of what we saw as their eccentricities.

I am sorry about that.  I guess I could try to excuse  my behavior back then on the fact that I was young and a victim of a cultural socialization process that bent toward homophobia.  However, while my opinions and attitudes have evolved since then, unfortunately, I am still not completely guilt-free when it comes to occasionally behaving in a juvenile manner, even though I know that this type of “harmless” behavior may be enabling someone elses more aggressive, dangerous behavior.

Evolution is a slow process.

Still, as far as I can tell, for the first half of my navy career, most sailors really didn’t pay the issue of homosexuals in the military hardly any mind.

That all changed under President Clinton’s watch, however.  Once he made allowing homosexuals to serve in the military an issue, it became an issue for all service members — a big one.

Prior to Clinton’s presidency, I have no recollection whatsoever of there being any open hostility or harassment towards homosexuals in the military.  I am in no way saying that there wasn’t any open hostility or harassment towards homosexuals for the first ten years of my career, I’m only saying that if there was, it did not leave an impression on my internal google, for I cannot pull up any recollections; nor has it left an impression on the external google, for I cannot pull up any major stories or websites profiling open hostility or harassment towards homosexuals in the military prior to President Clinton making it an issue.  (My definition for major is at least a story or a website that makes it on the first page of google’s search results. If I have to dig deeper than that then to me it must not have been a major event. I know, that’s a weak rationale for a lazy research method but it’s what I’m going with.)

But it seems that once homosexuals in the military became a national issue, folks of all over the country began to take notice, especially the closet homophobes.

Soon afterward, open hostility, harassment, and even assaults towards homosexuals began making the news.

Presidential candidate Bill Clinton made allowing homosexuals to openly serve in the military an issue throughout his 1990-1991 presidential campaign.

This sailor was stomped to death in October 1992.

President Clinton issued Defense Directive 1304.26 which became known as Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in December 1993.

This college student was pistol whipped and tortured to death in October 1998.

This soldier was beat to death with a baseball bat in July 1999.

And now, with the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and with the nation’s attention focused more than ever on the issue of homosexuals in the military, we may wonder if there will be additional hostility, harassment, and assaults toward homosexuals.

I am afraid we may already have our answer.

Presidential candidate Barack Obama made allowing homosexuals to openly serve in the military an issue throughout his 2007-2008 presidential campaign.

Democrats began ramping up their efforts to repeal the ban in Congress in March 2009.

This sailor was gunned down and burned in July 2009.

This civilian was beaten by two marines in July 2010.

Maybe it’s a stretch to try to link these deaths and beatings to the fact that the nation is focusing on the issue of homosexuals serving in the military, maybe it’s not.  Regardless, we all should hope for the best when the repeal is finally lifted sometime this year and homosexuals are allowed to openly serve.  But while we are hoping for the best, we should also remain vigilante to the possibility that the risks toward our newly liberated brothers and sisters in arms may significantly increase as the nation continues to focus on this issue for the foreseeable future.

Lung GVHD by Any Other Name

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As I’ve tweeted in the past, I’ve contracted both acute and chronic Lung Graft Versus Host Disease as a result of my April 2010, Bone Marrow Transplant. For clarity’s sake, or perhaps to confuse things even more, I think it is important to be more specific in naming my lung disease. In my lab reports and in discussions with my doctors, in addition to Lung GVHD, it is referred to by several different names: Chronic Bronchiolitis; Constrictive Bronchiolitis; Focal Follicular Bronchitis/Bronchiolitis; but the name I will refer to it as is Bronchiolitis Obliterans, or BO. According to the doctors, it is the most correct name, and, most importantly to me, it’s the most fun to say.

Say it: Bronchiolitis Obliterans.

Wasn’t that fun?

I am not going to attempt to explain the disease in detail; however, what I will briefly say about it is that it a non-reversible, degenerative lung disease that compresses and scars the bronchioles which blocks, or obliterates, the airways. Unfortunately, there currently is no cure for the disease, but it can be treated with a high-dosage, anti-inflammatory steroid regiment.

I was also diagnosed with Acute Lung GVHD. Another name for this is Lymphocytic Bronchiolitis. Not quite as much fun to say as the other one is it? I have been on a steroid regiment since the end of October 2010, and the good news is I have positively responded to the treatment. My acute symptoms lessened as soon as I began taking the drugs. What a relief it was. Those who saw me prior to me starting the treatment can testify what a pitiful state I was in. In addition to the Lung GVHD, I also had skin, mouth, and lower GI GVHD. The steroids is taking care of them as well and now I have put on close to twenty pounds and I am getting stronger and stronger through stair climbing exercises and weight training.

Of course I still have the Chronic GVHD, or Bronchiolitis Obliterans, and always will; however, because I have responded so well to the acute conditions of the GVHD, the hope is that the steroid treatment will be able to at least stabilize my chronic condition and prevent or postpone for as long as possible, any further degradation.

Yesterday during a checkup with my GVHD doctor, I learned that I will probably be on the steroid treatment for the rest of my life. Not cool because the side effects are horrible; but, like I often have said about all the crap I put up with during the leukemia fight—it’s better than the alternative. I also learned that I will probably never again be able to return to work, or to a normal, vigorous lifestyle like I used to live. I don’t yet know what to say about this–I’m still processing the news.

I do know that exercise and a healthy diet is going to more critical to me now than ever before in my life. I need to continually strengthen and condition my heart and body so that it becomes as efficient and as effective as possible with limited and possibly lessening quantities of oxygen.

Bronchiolitis Obliterans.

At least it’s still fun to say.

A Super Sad True Look at What May Lie Ahead

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BOOK | FICTION | LITERATURE
SUPER SAD TRUE LOVE STORY
by Gary Shteyngart
RATING: ★ ★ ★

Gary Shteyngart
Gary Shteyngart

In Gary Shteyngart’s SUPER SAD TRUE LOVE STORY, the state of the union is dire. The country is bankrupt and so are its morals and values. It is at war both abroad and at home with itself. Its fall from grace and global dominance is near complete. Its citizens are vacuous, intellectually dead, and have ceded their free will and persona’s to ubiquitous technological devices and the killer apps that power them.

While this may sound like a description of the America of today with its battered and disaffected citizenry, insane debt and out of control spending, and an even more insane and dysfunctional political environment that is preventing any type of resolution to any of its problems, we don’t know exactly when all of this is happening except that it is sometime in the near future.

Within the midst of this dystopian future is love-stricken Lenny, a shlumpy, less-than handsome, middle-aged romantic, first generation Russian, lover of his past-its-prime-and-glory city, who still reads those anachronistic, smelly pressed wood pulp things with ink-stained letters called books, attempting to court Eunice, a vibrant, young, superficial first generation Korean beauty who is repulsed by nearly everything about Lenny–he is old, naïve and weak, he has the face of a battleship, and the smell of his dirty old books make her ill–and who consumes her time and mind by shopping and live streaming on her all-consuming apparat.

Theirs is an unstable and unbalanced love affair that seems destined to collapse, as does just about everything important in Lenny’s life: we see America’s empire collapsing and the corpornation of China’s rising; we see the rule of law collapsing in his city as contractor military forces impose martial law in an effort to contain and control veterans returning from the war with Venezuela who are protesting and plotting against what’s left of the government because they have not received their promised combat pay; we see the collapse of his professional a life because he, a man more comfortable in second hand clothes and who still enjoys long, slow walks through Central Park, just cannot meet the rigors and sales quotas associated with having to sell Kurzweilian-like, eternal life plans to rich elites. Things look pretty grim for poor Lenny.

Things look grim because Super Sad True Love Story is a grim, despondent story; but fortunately for us, the readers, Shteyngart is a talented writer who tells the story in clever, humorous ways that take some of the sting out of its biting, bitter message…but not all of it.

I recommend you read Super Sad True Love Story, if not for its creative, literary value, then for its glimpse into what might become if we don’t soon figure out a way to work together in a common interest of saving our country from becoming a super sad true story of collapse and ruin.

~~~~

Rating System:
★ = Unreadable
★ ★ = Poor Read
★ ★ ★ = Average Read
★ ★ ★ ★ = Outstanding Read
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ = Exceptional Read

Homosexuality and Our National Interest

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Report of the Comprehensive Review of the Issues Associated with a Repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”
Report of the Comprehensive Review of the Issues Associated with a Repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”

Because of my personal interest in this important civil rights issue, I have been closely following the national debate regarding the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell for some time now. My view on whether homosexuals should be allowed to openly serve in the military has significantly evolved since I first joined the navy in 1983. I believe, and have for some time, that homosexuals should be allowed to serve openly. I came to this conclusion for many reasons but here are the primary ones:

1.      It is in the best interest of our national security. Our country is engaged in two active military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan while still keeping all of the other national security concerns–terrorism, Iran, North Korea, and many others–in check. Our nation simply cannot afford to waste valuable resources in any form, particularly its military resources. Our most valuable national and military resource is our patriotic citizens who volunteer to serve and protect our nation. Denying our military the service of patriotic volunteers because of their sexual orientation is not only shortsighted and stupid, it is potentially damaging to military readiness and our national security.

2.      It is in the best interest of our national psyche. We all know very well that we are a country founded on the truth that all men are created equal under the laws of nature and of God. This is deeply instilled into our national psyche. Yet, we have had a painfully psychological, and at times very physical, struggle trying to turn this national belief into a national reality. We have learned from our long history of attempting to reconcile our fundamental beliefs with our country’s original sin of slavery, that when we as a nation say that we all are to receive equal rights under our laws while at the same time denying these rights to a segment of our society based on the color of their skin, our national psyche suffered deeply from it. We became dysfunctional, self-hating, and even came close to committing national suicide over it. The cognitive dissonance that occurs when saying one thing–that all men are created equal and are guaranteed equal rights under our laws–and then doing another–denying these equal rights based on race, sex, religion, national origin, or sexual orientation–is not only detrimental to our national psyche, it is damning to our national soul.

Much more work still needs to be done to ensure homosexuals receive equal rights under our laws, but as a nation, we can go a long way to securing our national security and improving the health of our national psyche simply by allowing them to serve openly in the military.

So it was with much anticipation and high expectations that I watched today while Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen briefed the findings of the “Report of the Comprehensive Review of the Issues Associated with a Repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and then answered reporters’s questions. After Gates and Mullen finished their brief, the Co-chairmen of the study, Defense Department General Counsel Jeh Johnson and Army General Carter Ham, provided a more comprehensive overview of the report and answered reporters’s questions.

I am still plowing through the 267-page report, but based on what I learned from today’s briefings on it and my read of its executive summary, I am very impressed with its thoroughness and its results.

Secretary Gates was asked how he would respond to Senator McCain’s claim that the report is the wrong report. McCain, although an initial supporter of the survey, quickly began rejecting the results once they had started leaking out earlier in the month, saying that the survey wrongly focused on how to implement the repeal of DADT instead of focusing on how the repeal would impact military readiness. Gates responded to the question simply by saying that while he respects Senator McCain, the senator is wrong about his assessment of the survey. And from what I learned from what was briefed by the military and from my read of the report’s executive summary, I agree with Secretary Gates.

By shifting away from his original position on the survey, Senator McCain has made it clear that is doing nothing more than engaging in the Republican strategy of blocking any political success for the president and Democrats, regardless of the political costs to himself and his party. Consequently, I have little hope that DADT will be repealed during this lame duck congressional session. Both our national security and our national psyche will suffer for it.

http://www.pentagonchannel.mil/swf/flvPlayer.swf

I Want To Know

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There has been much news lately about how the Transportation Security Authority’s new screening procedures are upsetting the traveling public and, to be honest, all of the whining is getting on my nerves. On the one hand, we demand our government guarantee us a safe, bomb-free air travel experience, yet we don’t want to utilize the advanced technology to help secure this guarantee because of our own fears and insecurities.

What are we afraid of? That some TSA screener is going to get to see us bare and blemished? Come on. Haven’t we all undergone a doctor’s examination? Haven’t we already had to overcome our pretensions and shyness to strip bare in his or her office to receive a truly hands-on, prodding and poking screening in attempt to guarantee our health security? At the airport all we have to worry about is having a remote image of ourselves being seen by an anonymous government employee who has the unenviable task of actually having to look closely at and examine our scanned image in all its glory. Have you taken a good look at us lately? I certainly wouldn’t want that job. So lets get over it. Lets get scanned. Lets get screened. And lets do it with as little delay and complaint as possible so we all can get through the line and to our destination as quickly and stress-free as possible.

Or is it not our insecurities of public nudity so much as it is our fear of the doses of radiation that the body scanner supposedly emits that forces us out of the body scanning line and into the alternate, hands-on, I-love-you-short-time screening line? Come on. Electromagnetic radiations are emanating at us from everywhere and we know it. We are basically being slow cooked regardless of where we are. Heck, we even carry around portable brain cookers in our pockets and purses–they are called mobile phones. What are the odds that getting an occasional body scan at the airport is going to cause us harm? What do we think is going to happen, that we’re going to get…cancer?

Well, maybe we will.

Maybe we won’t.

Who knows, right? I sure don’t. I have no idea how that airport body scan, or the x-ray from our annual checkup, or our microwave oven, or our mobile phone, or our televisions and computer screens, or the power terminal that we used to play around when we were kids, or all of the other many environmental and life hazards like pollution, in all its forms, and stress, in all its forms, will impact our health.

I don’t know…but I wish I did. I wish I knew how all of the radiation and pollution and stress impacted my health over the years. Does any of it have to do with how or why I became inflicted with leukemia? I want to know.

My not knowing is not from not asking, that’s for sure. When I first was diagnosed with leukemia, I asked just about every oncologist who came within grabbing distance of my long reach what exactly caused my disease. Their pedantic responses, often laced with undertones of condescension and self-serving gravitas, sounded more like a jargon-laden abstract of an article published in an exclusive, onocologists’s-eyes-only medical journal than a clear and thoughtful response based soundly upon their careful study of all of my specific lab results compared against my very singular and personal condition and lifestyle. I soon tired of their tedious and inconclusive answers and stopped asking them.

Perhaps I am being too hard on my oncologists. I have come to learn this past year that one would be hard-pressed to get a definite answer to just about any question asked to them regarding cause or diagnosis to any infliction, whether its concerning my leukemia in general or any of the multitude of subsequent ailments I have experienced as a result of my treatment. It seems that every response is heavily guarded by caveats and suppositions. Maybe they have become so conditioned by fear of litigation.

So I began my own quest for conclusiveness. I cruised up and down the internet so many times in search for answers that I felt like a cross between Sam Spade and Clu. I searched through all of the search engines. I searched through WebMD. I searched through NIH. I searched through CDC. I searched through WHO. I even went retro and searched through my hard copy series of Encyclopedia Britannica and, in the end, the only real answer I came up with to how or why I became inflicted with leukemia is…it depends…which is essentially the short version of the long-winded blather my oncologists gave me.

It depends. Such a disheartening answer to such a profound question.

But there it is so I guess I have to let my oncologists, and the entire medical community for that matter, off the hook for not being able to provide me with a definite answer.

Based upon what I now know, the cause of leukemia may depend on so many different variables—one of which is NOT hereditary, surprisingly—that it really is impossible to pinpoint the exact cause of why someone becomes inflicted with it. But, there are environmental and lifestyles conditions that may increase one’s chances. With this knowledge, I have narrowed the cause for my infliction down to the following few possibilities:

  • Pollution. I have no idea how much pollution I have consumed in my life; but I do know of times when, because of the work I did in the navy early on in my career, I had to breath in large amounts of ash and dust for up to eight hours a time on many occasions. I would cough up and blow out black gook for days after each occasion.
  • Asbestos. I have no idea if or how much asbestos I have consumed in my life; maybe none at all; or, maybe enough of the tiny particle stuff drifted down from the insulated pipes in the old school and office buildings I used to labor in to impact my health. There was a time in the navy, however, when I may have been exposed to trace amounts of it when I was involved with a team conducting a thorough inventory of my ship’s supplies. The team, including me, was immediately sent to medical for an occupational health asbestos screening.
  • Radiation. There are many ways to be radiated and there are many types of radiation. Types of radiation can be broadly categorized as being either ionizing radiation (xray, gamma) which are known to cause cancer, and non-ionizing radiation (microwave, radio wave), which is disputed within the medical and scientific communities as to whether this type causes cancer or not. I have no idea how radiated I have become in my life; but, as a telecommunications specialist in the navy, I was constantly working around transmitters (I know, non-ionizing) and many other sorts of electronic equipment for most of my career.
  • Lyme Disease. I’ll be honest, I have found nothing that links Lyme disease with leukemia; but, I contracted it in 2005 and, before the leukemia, it was the most horrible thing medically that ever happened to me so I really, really would like to be able to blame it for my leukemia.

Unfortunately, neither I nor anyone else can say with any degree of certainty if one or all or none of these conditions caused my infliction. But here is to hoping and praying that someday a test will be developed that will. For once there is a way to determine the cause of leukemia, it seems to me that, in addition to providing a balm of understanding and a level of closure to the inflicted, it may also help facilitate the discovery of a means for preventing and eventually eliminating the disease all together. Until then we will just have to hope, pray, wonder, and wait.

But there is one thing I am certain of—if I am ever standing behind you in a security line at the airport and you start making a scene about not wanting to go through the body scanner for whatever reason and it has a negative impact on my travel experience, you will know that the sharp smack you receive to the back of your head and its resultant pain was definitely caused by me.

A Late Take On THE CORRECTIONS

by

BOOK | FICTION | LITERATURE
THE CORRECTIONS
by Jonathan Franzen
RATING: ★ ★ ★ ★

Jonathan Franzen
Jonathan Franzen

In 2001, after reading all the hype and controversy, as well as the fawning reviews of Jonathan Franzen’s THE CORRECTIONS, I thought to myself that I need to read this new It Author and made plans to rush out and buy the book. But for some reason I never did and I soon forgot about both the book and the author. I must confess, I’ve always had a hard time keeping up with literature’s contemporary writers. Heck, I have a hard enough time just trying to chip away at all of the classic literary must reads that are out there and, because I never really feel like I’m reading enough, I live with a constant feeling that I’m always a bit behind in life. Perhaps I need some couch time with Dr. Phil.

I do remember thinking to myself somewhere around mid-decade that there was once some writer that I really wanted to read, but I just couldn’t remember his name no matter how hard I tried. However, after reading the gushing reviews of Franzen’s long-awaited book FREEDOM, I finally remembered that it was his book THE CORRECTIONS that I had wanted to read so long ago. So, with that euphoric feeling of finally remembering something that had been on the tip of my tongue for a decade, I immediately rushed out to get a copy of THE CORRECTIONS before I forgot about it once again.

I got it, I read it, and yes, I agree Jonathan Franzen is an amazing writer. He deserves all of the hype he has received. And, perhaps because he has been placed in a category of elite writers few have or will every reach, maybe he even deserves the hostility and parodying that he has also received…or maybe I’m just jealous. Man, woman, or beast, whoever can write like Franzen can deserves to be the It Author of the decade in my opinion.

There are many better reviews about THE CORRECTIONS out there than I could ever write so all I’ll say is that the book is a sad, funny, and often psychologically wrenching story about a dysfunctional Midwestern family where, like the inevitable and often unexpected, and sometimes shattering, corrections that stock markets suffer from when they become unnaturally distorted or bloated, each member of this scattered and failing family is in need of his or her own life correction.

Coupled with his fluid writing style, perfect dialogue, and his ability to weave into the story his broad knowledge of the general mechanics of life in general, Franzen continually blew me away with his deep understanding of all the many different flavors of human nature and personality types. You will have to read the book to understand what I’m talking about here. He’s good.

The biggest fault of the book is perhaps a result of just how good Franzen is. He had so much to say that at times the story overwhelmed me with too much background and too much delving into the whys and hows the characters had turned out like they did. From time to time, I had to take a break from the book and walk it off.

Okay, so I’m ten years late to the party but I finally read THE CORRECTIONS and I’m glad I did. If you haven’t read it yet, I recommend that you do. And once the massive hold queue for FREEDOM thins out at the library and my turn finally comes up, I plan on reading it, too. I just hope it doesn’t take me another ten years and having to overcome a bout of forgetfulness before I finally do.

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Rating System:
★ = Unreadable
★ ★ = Poor Read
★ ★ ★ = Average Read
★ ★ ★ ★ = Outstanding Read
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ = Exceptional Read