Tonight I came home from another busy day, turned on the TV and started watching “The Biggest Looser.” It is not something I normally watch, but I am fascinated by how the show creates drama and emotion. If you think about it, a bunch of overweight people trying to lose weight should not be the stuff of high drama. Yet somehow the show titillates and keeps you engaged by implicitly asking “what happens next?” That question is what keeps life interesting in general.
Last week at this time Yoko and I were watching the election returns. We were not surprised at the outcome. The people were speaking and you would have to be hard of hearing not to understand what they were saying. Still, we’re looking forward to seeing what happens next. Every day a little bit more of the unfolding political drama is revealed. I love it!
I think a lot about how lucky I am to be alive to enjoy life’s happenings. I appreciate mundane everyday things more than I ever did. On my daily morning walks with the dog I think about the wonder of nature and how incredibly improbable life is. Life will come to an end for us all – one way or another. But what a gift we have to be alive and conscious and wondering every day, what happens next!
Yoko and I went north over the weekend to participate in the Free to Breathe 5K Run/Walk in Ponte Verde Beach organized by my friend and fellow survivor, Julia Stroud. They had over 800 participants and raised more than $130,000 for lung cancer research. Julia was overcome with emotion as she addressed the crowd, including our friend Mary, a Stage IV survivor now battling multiple metastases to the brain. Mary’s having a hard time as do many lung cancer patients as they near the end stages of the disease. I share Julia’s emotion.
After we returned from Jacksonville I received a moving letter from a woman who’s been reading this column each week. Her father, a WWII veteran, fought a three year battle with lung cancer and lost six years ago. She’s not gotten over her loss. Her description of the pain and suffering he endured brought tears to my eyes. No one should have to endure such indignities.
I’ve been collecting the names of people who have died of lung cancer --residents, friends or relatives of people who live in Charlotte County. Sadly I have over 70 signs to be displayed at this year’s “Mile of Memories” walk. I attended the Board of County Commissioner’s meeting to receive a proclamation declaring November 13th Lung Cancer Awareness Day. As the proclamation was read, I thought of all the people I know personally who are fighting this disease and became unexpectedly emotional.
Advocating for lung cancer lead me to writing to NBC Nightly News at the end of October when on a single news broadcast they had two lengthy stories about the fight against breast cancer. I wrote to complain bitterly that in 10 years I had not seen a single story on lung cancer, the number one cancer killer. To my surprise, Robert Bazell, the Chief Health and Science Correspondent for NBC News, replied immediately. My complaint apparently got his attention. He said that he alone had done 24 stories in the past five years. He acknowledged that “one could argue that 24 stories in five year are not enough for the number one cancer killer.” I agree.
Call it coincidence, but two days later NBC Nightly News’ top story was about the results of a clinical trial showing that low-dose CT scan may offer a clinically acceptable way to screen for lung cancer. That’s a real breakthrough – both the trial results and the news story. I’ll be curious to see what happens next.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Saturday, September 25, 2010
The Deadline to End Breast Cancer
On Thursday afternoon I flew to Minneapolis to take part the National Breast Cancer Coalition's LEAD Project, an intensive three-day workshop designed to train breast cancer advocates. LEAD stands for leadership, education, advocacy and development. The seminar is well named. It is designed to educate and develop advocate leaders in the breast cancer movement. I attended the conference at the recommendation of The National Lung Cancer Partnership and I am glad I did.
This time last year I was writing about "Octoberbreast", when every town in America is painted pink. As a lung cancer advocate I have been jealous of the support and funding for breast cancer as compared to lung cancer. So I was a little apprehensive about attending this conference and then saying something inappropriate. In the end, I decided that the best policy was to say as little as possible and just listen.
First, I have to say that the group assembled -- both teaching staff and students -- was impressive. The lecturers included cancer researchers from the National Cancer Institute and various teaching staff and physicians from such educational institutions as Virginia Tech, Harvard, Amherst College, and The University of Minnesota. The “students” included breast cancer researchers as well as advocates and organizers from the mid-West, many of whom are nurses, physicians and epidemiologists. The group was reflective of the entire country including blacks, whites, Asians and Hispanics. However, I was the only male in the class, which was really no surprise. (Every cancer conference I have been to in the last two years has been dominated by women.)
This particular group was knowledgeable, well educated, thoughtful and fun. Many were breast cancer survivors. Over the three days I learned the basics of cellular biology as it relates to cancer, some of the basics of epidemiology, and how to read and interpret medical research reports with a critical eye. I also learned about the cellular biology of the latest targeted drug therapies and how they work. The LEAD Project is renowned for training knowledgeable breast cancer advocates and I can see why.
During conference breaks and at mealtime I was able to speak with many of these women who have been through treatments very similar to mine. I was surprised to learn that we could speak the same language and that our experiences as cancer patients were not all that different. Many of the participants were not aware of lung cancer mortality rates and funding statistics. Most were surprised and open to the idea that lung cancer is as much a women’s issue as breast cancer.
Many of the questions they are asking in the breast cancer movement and at this conference are the same as the questions I have: for example, why are so many young women developing breast cancer (and lung cancer)?
I was surprised to learn about the shortcomings of mammography as a screening technology and that some women have a “predisposition” to breast cancer, if they have certain gene mutations. It made me think that there may be similar gene mutations for lung cancer that have not been discovered.
It would be hard to summarize all that I learned in three days. What I can say is that I now have a better understanding of the overlapping interests of breast and lung cancer. The National Breast Cancer Coalition announced at the conference that they are setting a date for the end of breast cancer – January 1st 2020. They believe setting a deadline for results will be the first step in replacing “hope” and “pink” with a plan of action. That is an idea I certainly endorse. Why not make it ALL cancers?
Somehow we have to learn what genetic predisposition results in men not becoming involved in cancer advocacy. If we can unlock that mysterious genetic code, we could redouble our efforts to end cancer.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Lung Cancer: The Number One Killer of Women
Three years ago my daughter Jessie was just starting her college career and Yoko and I were beginning a new life as “empty nesters.” We made plans to travel. Labor Day weekend 2007 we went to visit friends in New Mexico. I remember having had a cough that would not go away, but I was convinced it was allergies. Little did I know that less than a month later I would be diagnosed with lung cancer.
Next week will mark the third anniversary of my Stage IIIA lung cancer diagnosis. My cancer was discovered in an x-ray by my primary care physician. I remember my wife asking me what the doctor had to say about my cough after coming home from my annual physical. Not yet having the test results, I jokingly told her I had lung cancer; the very next day I learned the joke was on me.
Like anyone diagnosed with cancer, my life changed that day and it will never be the same. But I did not want the remainder of my life to now be about cancer treatments and declining health. I determined to accommodate the necessary treatments, whatever came, but not be ruled by them.
For example, I did not want to make changes to our “empty nester” travel plans. Yoko and I went to visit my sister in Houston the weekend following my first round of chemo. A few weeks later, I went to radiation in the morning followed by chemo until mid-afternoon. That same day we drove to Tallahassee to see Jessie and attend a Saturday afternoon FSU football game. I wore one of those crazy garnet wigs to the game and attributed my new hair color and out of control hair style to the radiation treatments.
In those early days I was hoping to be able to attend Paula’s wedding, but I didn’t think I would live long enough to see Jessie’s college graduation. Three years later, I am enjoying good health and looking forward to the future. Oldest daughter Paula, who is now married, is having a baby boy in February. My baby girl, Jessie, will graduate college in May.
Cancer never leaves you. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about having this disease. It’s incorporated into my life. It’s part of who I am and what I do. I have added surviving inoperable lung cancer to my greatest accomplishments, which include mastering the Japanese language, getting Yoko to marry me, and raising and educating my three beautiful girls. These past three years of living with cancer have been some of the most fulfilling years of my life. There is still more I want to do.
October is breast cancer awareness month. The entire country will, once again, be plastered with pink thanks to the efforts of breast cancer advocates. Mark my words: women, not men, will find the cure for cancer.
I’ve been jealous of the attention paid to breast cancer while lung cancer – the number one cancer killer of women -- is practically ignored. Lung cancer remains in the shadows and on the back burner when it comes to research. No one knows why a young woman, like my friend and fellow advocate, Melissa Petersen, is suddenly cut down by lung cancer. Melissa was in the prime of her life with two small children and no history of smoking. She, like many others, believed that hormonal changes during pregnancy may have had something to do with her developing the disease.
The National Lung Cancer Partnership suggested I attend the National Breast Cancer Coalition’s LEADS workshop in Minneapolis this weekend. The three-day conference will bring breast cancer advocates together to learn about the latest developments in cancer research. There’s a lot I can learn from breast cancer advocates. I hope to teach them to “look deeper” too.
Next week will mark the third anniversary of my Stage IIIA lung cancer diagnosis. My cancer was discovered in an x-ray by my primary care physician. I remember my wife asking me what the doctor had to say about my cough after coming home from my annual physical. Not yet having the test results, I jokingly told her I had lung cancer; the very next day I learned the joke was on me.
Like anyone diagnosed with cancer, my life changed that day and it will never be the same. But I did not want the remainder of my life to now be about cancer treatments and declining health. I determined to accommodate the necessary treatments, whatever came, but not be ruled by them.
For example, I did not want to make changes to our “empty nester” travel plans. Yoko and I went to visit my sister in Houston the weekend following my first round of chemo. A few weeks later, I went to radiation in the morning followed by chemo until mid-afternoon. That same day we drove to Tallahassee to see Jessie and attend a Saturday afternoon FSU football game. I wore one of those crazy garnet wigs to the game and attributed my new hair color and out of control hair style to the radiation treatments.
In those early days I was hoping to be able to attend Paula’s wedding, but I didn’t think I would live long enough to see Jessie’s college graduation. Three years later, I am enjoying good health and looking forward to the future. Oldest daughter Paula, who is now married, is having a baby boy in February. My baby girl, Jessie, will graduate college in May.
Cancer never leaves you. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about having this disease. It’s incorporated into my life. It’s part of who I am and what I do. I have added surviving inoperable lung cancer to my greatest accomplishments, which include mastering the Japanese language, getting Yoko to marry me, and raising and educating my three beautiful girls. These past three years of living with cancer have been some of the most fulfilling years of my life. There is still more I want to do.
October is breast cancer awareness month. The entire country will, once again, be plastered with pink thanks to the efforts of breast cancer advocates. Mark my words: women, not men, will find the cure for cancer.
I’ve been jealous of the attention paid to breast cancer while lung cancer – the number one cancer killer of women -- is practically ignored. Lung cancer remains in the shadows and on the back burner when it comes to research. No one knows why a young woman, like my friend and fellow advocate, Melissa Petersen, is suddenly cut down by lung cancer. Melissa was in the prime of her life with two small children and no history of smoking. She, like many others, believed that hormonal changes during pregnancy may have had something to do with her developing the disease.
The National Lung Cancer Partnership suggested I attend the National Breast Cancer Coalition’s LEADS workshop in Minneapolis this weekend. The three-day conference will bring breast cancer advocates together to learn about the latest developments in cancer research. There’s a lot I can learn from breast cancer advocates. I hope to teach them to “look deeper” too.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Fooled By Randomness and Lessons Learned
Nassim Nicholas Taleb has written another best seller called “Fooled by Randomness – The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets.”
I think everyone should read this book because it provides great perspective about life in general. I’ve been reading the book as a way of getting a handle on risk management in the current economic climate, but I am finding that the concepts Taleb explains could be applied to all facets of life. If you can get past the author’s obvious intellectual snobbery, it’s a pretty good read.
If I had to sum up his concepts, it’s the idea that we human beings are blind to the role that probability and randomness (luck, both good and bad) plays in our daily lives. We tend to take credit for our hard work and skill, if we succeed in life, and we often blame ourselves if we fail. But we didn’t choose where we were born or our parents or the time period in which we live. I’m glad I am not born in Haiti. I’m glad my mother cared for me and was not a crack addict. I’ve been lucky.
Taleb says we commonly mistake luck for skill. He illustrates this concept in numerous ways. One example that illustrates alternative outcomes goes like this. Imagine I provide you with a loaded revolver and offer to pay you $10 million each time you put the gun to your head and pull the trigger. The revolver has six chambers but only one holds a bullet. Before the game begins, there are five potentially happy outcomes and one fatal result. If you live, it doesn’t mean you’re skilled, it means you are lucky and brave, even though the odd are with you that you’ll survive!
Imagine a money manager that has five market beating years in a row. We infer from his track record that he is skilled, when in fact it may just be luck to have been in the right asset class or using a strategy that works in most circumstances. You might hire him because of his good track record, mistaking luck for skill. Past performance is not indicative of future results!
You can apply that concept to nearly any human endeavor. For example, like tens of thousands of other people, I am working on writing a screenplay. Most screenplays started will never be finished, even fewer will ever be read by the right people and only a handful of the plays that are read will be made into a movie. Writing a successful movie script has as much to do with luck as it does with the skill of the writer.
One thing I can say for sure is that if I don’t write the screenplay, I can never be a screenplay writer. (If I don’t pull the trigger, I can never win the $10 million.) It comes down to what you are willing to risk. As Clint Eastwood would say, “Do you feel lucky?”
In the last few weeks I have had numerous conversations with people of all walks of life who are struggling in the current economy. I think people feel that they have done something wrong or made the wrong choices. Somehow they feel they are to blame for loss of a job, income or wealth. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s just bad luck and it’s not over till the fat lady sings. Better days are ahead.
I’ve gone through good times and bad times in my life. The ups and downs of living are part of the randomness of events we don’t easily see and can’t predict.
Einstein railed against the idea of random chance in physics. He is known for the famous quote that “God does not play dice.” I don’t agree. God invented the game and enjoys watching how we react to our daily wins and losses.
I think everyone should read this book because it provides great perspective about life in general. I’ve been reading the book as a way of getting a handle on risk management in the current economic climate, but I am finding that the concepts Taleb explains could be applied to all facets of life. If you can get past the author’s obvious intellectual snobbery, it’s a pretty good read.
If I had to sum up his concepts, it’s the idea that we human beings are blind to the role that probability and randomness (luck, both good and bad) plays in our daily lives. We tend to take credit for our hard work and skill, if we succeed in life, and we often blame ourselves if we fail. But we didn’t choose where we were born or our parents or the time period in which we live. I’m glad I am not born in Haiti. I’m glad my mother cared for me and was not a crack addict. I’ve been lucky.
Taleb says we commonly mistake luck for skill. He illustrates this concept in numerous ways. One example that illustrates alternative outcomes goes like this. Imagine I provide you with a loaded revolver and offer to pay you $10 million each time you put the gun to your head and pull the trigger. The revolver has six chambers but only one holds a bullet. Before the game begins, there are five potentially happy outcomes and one fatal result. If you live, it doesn’t mean you’re skilled, it means you are lucky and brave, even though the odd are with you that you’ll survive!
Imagine a money manager that has five market beating years in a row. We infer from his track record that he is skilled, when in fact it may just be luck to have been in the right asset class or using a strategy that works in most circumstances. You might hire him because of his good track record, mistaking luck for skill. Past performance is not indicative of future results!
You can apply that concept to nearly any human endeavor. For example, like tens of thousands of other people, I am working on writing a screenplay. Most screenplays started will never be finished, even fewer will ever be read by the right people and only a handful of the plays that are read will be made into a movie. Writing a successful movie script has as much to do with luck as it does with the skill of the writer.
One thing I can say for sure is that if I don’t write the screenplay, I can never be a screenplay writer. (If I don’t pull the trigger, I can never win the $10 million.) It comes down to what you are willing to risk. As Clint Eastwood would say, “Do you feel lucky?”
In the last few weeks I have had numerous conversations with people of all walks of life who are struggling in the current economy. I think people feel that they have done something wrong or made the wrong choices. Somehow they feel they are to blame for loss of a job, income or wealth. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s just bad luck and it’s not over till the fat lady sings. Better days are ahead.
I’ve gone through good times and bad times in my life. The ups and downs of living are part of the randomness of events we don’t easily see and can’t predict.
Einstein railed against the idea of random chance in physics. He is known for the famous quote that “God does not play dice.” I don’t agree. God invented the game and enjoys watching how we react to our daily wins and losses.
The Law is a Poor Substitute for Morality
It is too bad that we think that the law can be a substitute for common sense, decency or fair play. It can’t be. We Americans are all about protecting our rights under the law and our freedoms. But don’t we also have a moral obligation to do what is right for society at large? Isn’t the price for freedom about doing the right thing without having to create a law in the first place?
If everyone just did what was plainly right and commonly seen as being in the public interest, there would be less need for laws and lawyers. We have 1.1 million lawyers in the United States. Japan, which has a population half our size, has just 23,000 active attorneys. How does Japan get along with so few attorneys?
Here in America, anything that is not explicitly outlawed is deemed to be “legal”. It is just the opposite in Japan. If it is not explicitly allowed by the law, you should assume it is illegal. The Japanese system provides regulators with wide discretionary authority to decide what is allowed and what is not.
I am frustrated and angry with how people follow “the letter of the law”, but pervert and abuse the clear intent of the law. Take the ban on marketing cigarettes to children. When I attended a Tobacco-Free Charlotte County meeting organized by the Charlotte County Health Department last week, I learned for the first time how tobacco companies are getting around the prohibition of marketing cigarettes to minors. It really makes me mad.
For example, I didn’t know that you could convert cigarettes into “cigars” to get around the law, simply by changing the packaging. I had never heard of nicotine laced toothpicks, swizzle sticks, lip-balm, candy flavored tobacco (snuff) and candy-flavored nicotine drops that look like harmless breath mints.
To me nicotine laced products are all drug delivery systems that should simply be banned. Now that the FDA has the authority to regulate the manufacturing, marketing and sale of tobacco products, I hope they’ll get to work. In the meantime, tobacco companies and others continue to devise new ways to evade the law and create a new generation of addicts. It is reprehensible.
There is hardly a person in this country that doesn’t know that nicotine is a habit forming, potentially lethal substance. Nicotine laced products, including smokeless tobacco, are being marketed under the guise of being smoking-cessation products. In reality many of these products are being used as just another way of turning our kids into nicotine addicts. Who do they think they are kidding?
What’s the harm of nicotine-laced products? It is widely assumed that tar and other substances in tobacco smoke are the cancer causing agents in cigarettes. Get rid of the smoke and you get rid of the problem. But recent studies have made a strong connection between nicotine itself and cancer. The thought is that, over time, nicotine impairs the immune system and your body’s ability to fight and destroy cancer cells.
To avoid the high federal excise tax on cigarettes, tobacco retailers are now taking advantage of a loophole in the law with new “roll your own” machines. The new machines, being deployed at tobacco shops across the country, produce a carton of cigarettes in about 8 minutes using loose tobacco, which is exempt from federal taxes. A carton of roll your own costs just $21, about half the price of a carton of regular cigarettes.
When an existing law does not do what it was intended to do, we enact more laws to close such “loopholes.” The fact is that people who are intent on circumventing the law will always find a work around. If it is very profitable and illegal they’ll just go underground. The law is surely no substitute for morality.
If everyone just did what was plainly right and commonly seen as being in the public interest, there would be less need for laws and lawyers. We have 1.1 million lawyers in the United States. Japan, which has a population half our size, has just 23,000 active attorneys. How does Japan get along with so few attorneys?
Here in America, anything that is not explicitly outlawed is deemed to be “legal”. It is just the opposite in Japan. If it is not explicitly allowed by the law, you should assume it is illegal. The Japanese system provides regulators with wide discretionary authority to decide what is allowed and what is not.
I am frustrated and angry with how people follow “the letter of the law”, but pervert and abuse the clear intent of the law. Take the ban on marketing cigarettes to children. When I attended a Tobacco-Free Charlotte County meeting organized by the Charlotte County Health Department last week, I learned for the first time how tobacco companies are getting around the prohibition of marketing cigarettes to minors. It really makes me mad.
For example, I didn’t know that you could convert cigarettes into “cigars” to get around the law, simply by changing the packaging. I had never heard of nicotine laced toothpicks, swizzle sticks, lip-balm, candy flavored tobacco (snuff) and candy-flavored nicotine drops that look like harmless breath mints.
To me nicotine laced products are all drug delivery systems that should simply be banned. Now that the FDA has the authority to regulate the manufacturing, marketing and sale of tobacco products, I hope they’ll get to work. In the meantime, tobacco companies and others continue to devise new ways to evade the law and create a new generation of addicts. It is reprehensible.
There is hardly a person in this country that doesn’t know that nicotine is a habit forming, potentially lethal substance. Nicotine laced products, including smokeless tobacco, are being marketed under the guise of being smoking-cessation products. In reality many of these products are being used as just another way of turning our kids into nicotine addicts. Who do they think they are kidding?
What’s the harm of nicotine-laced products? It is widely assumed that tar and other substances in tobacco smoke are the cancer causing agents in cigarettes. Get rid of the smoke and you get rid of the problem. But recent studies have made a strong connection between nicotine itself and cancer. The thought is that, over time, nicotine impairs the immune system and your body’s ability to fight and destroy cancer cells.
To avoid the high federal excise tax on cigarettes, tobacco retailers are now taking advantage of a loophole in the law with new “roll your own” machines. The new machines, being deployed at tobacco shops across the country, produce a carton of cigarettes in about 8 minutes using loose tobacco, which is exempt from federal taxes. A carton of roll your own costs just $21, about half the price of a carton of regular cigarettes.
When an existing law does not do what it was intended to do, we enact more laws to close such “loopholes.” The fact is that people who are intent on circumventing the law will always find a work around. If it is very profitable and illegal they’ll just go underground. The law is surely no substitute for morality.
When It Rains, It Pours
Morton Salt’s label displays a little girl holding an umbrella. The tag line on the label reads “when it rains, it pours” which was adapted from the old proverb, “it never rains, but it pours.” The clever ad campaign and branding came about as a result of Morton’s innovation of adding magnesium carbonate (anti-caking agent) to salt, creating a table salt that flowed freely. (That is, even when it rains, it (the salt) pours!)
The real meaning of the proverb is that something doesn’t happen for a long time, and then it seems to happen all at once. Swarms and clusters happen in life. Life events are rarely evenly spaced.
Remember the year Hurricane Charley hit? Storms were coming at us one after the other that year. I was in Japan attending Yoko’s mother’s funeral when Charley hit. Our home was destroyed by the storm. We had to gut the house and rebuild. Since then we’ve been pretty lucky. Let’s hope our luck continues.
It’s been six years since Charley and five years since we moved back into our house. We haven’t had to do much around the house for the last few years, but suddenly we’ve had a rash of things that need to be repaired or replaced. It’s as though things know that, after five years, it’s time to break.
Our household repairs this summer included, the air conditioner in my daughter’s car, a replacement set of tires for Yoko’s car, a repair job on the freezer and ice machine, a new sewer line from the house to the street, repairs to the pool pump, the cruise control on my car, and replacing our home entertainment system. Oh well, the good news is it’s nothing that can’t be fixed and we are fortunate enough to be able to afford to fix the things that break!
When it comes to the human body, repairs are not so easy and the cost is not so cheap. As we age, physical problems also seem to swarm. Have you ever noticed that when you are not well, it’s not just one thing?
Many people I know have had a hip or knee replacement, surgery for a bad rotator cuff, surgery to correct a bad back or other ailing parts. Many of these people are back to living an active life, without the previous pain and discomfort. Many say that, in retrospect, they wonder why they waited so long to take corrective measures. Unquestionably, medicine has made fantastic progress in my lifetime when it comes to replacing failing body parts.
A friend of mine has a 20-something year old son who developed ameloblastoma, which is a rare benign tumor that appears in the mandible. The symptoms were a “toothache” which his son ignored for some time. The tumor in his jaw was discovered after he finally visited a dentist. His son was treated last month by excising the tumor with surgery (removing all of the affected bone) and replacing a large piece of his jaw with a graft from his leg. The procedure took a team of surgeons 14 hours to complete. His son was in post-surgical intensive care for several days and is now, thankfully, on the mend. Rehabilitation will take months but he has a good prognosis for leading a completely normal life. Praise God!
In January of this year the Virginia B Andes Volunteer Community Clinic arranged for a bilateral hip replacement for a disabled patient who was wheelchair bound by bone on bone hip pain in both joints. The hospital operating room, surgeon, anesthetist, nurses, hip prosthetics, transportation, and rehabilitation services were all donated by our caring medical community. This patient is not only walking again, but he’s going back to work!
All things break in time, but what can be better than fixing an injured body and repairing a broken life.
The real meaning of the proverb is that something doesn’t happen for a long time, and then it seems to happen all at once. Swarms and clusters happen in life. Life events are rarely evenly spaced.
Remember the year Hurricane Charley hit? Storms were coming at us one after the other that year. I was in Japan attending Yoko’s mother’s funeral when Charley hit. Our home was destroyed by the storm. We had to gut the house and rebuild. Since then we’ve been pretty lucky. Let’s hope our luck continues.
It’s been six years since Charley and five years since we moved back into our house. We haven’t had to do much around the house for the last few years, but suddenly we’ve had a rash of things that need to be repaired or replaced. It’s as though things know that, after five years, it’s time to break.
Our household repairs this summer included, the air conditioner in my daughter’s car, a replacement set of tires for Yoko’s car, a repair job on the freezer and ice machine, a new sewer line from the house to the street, repairs to the pool pump, the cruise control on my car, and replacing our home entertainment system. Oh well, the good news is it’s nothing that can’t be fixed and we are fortunate enough to be able to afford to fix the things that break!
When it comes to the human body, repairs are not so easy and the cost is not so cheap. As we age, physical problems also seem to swarm. Have you ever noticed that when you are not well, it’s not just one thing?
Many people I know have had a hip or knee replacement, surgery for a bad rotator cuff, surgery to correct a bad back or other ailing parts. Many of these people are back to living an active life, without the previous pain and discomfort. Many say that, in retrospect, they wonder why they waited so long to take corrective measures. Unquestionably, medicine has made fantastic progress in my lifetime when it comes to replacing failing body parts.
A friend of mine has a 20-something year old son who developed ameloblastoma, which is a rare benign tumor that appears in the mandible. The symptoms were a “toothache” which his son ignored for some time. The tumor in his jaw was discovered after he finally visited a dentist. His son was treated last month by excising the tumor with surgery (removing all of the affected bone) and replacing a large piece of his jaw with a graft from his leg. The procedure took a team of surgeons 14 hours to complete. His son was in post-surgical intensive care for several days and is now, thankfully, on the mend. Rehabilitation will take months but he has a good prognosis for leading a completely normal life. Praise God!
In January of this year the Virginia B Andes Volunteer Community Clinic arranged for a bilateral hip replacement for a disabled patient who was wheelchair bound by bone on bone hip pain in both joints. The hospital operating room, surgeon, anesthetist, nurses, hip prosthetics, transportation, and rehabilitation services were all donated by our caring medical community. This patient is not only walking again, but he’s going back to work!
All things break in time, but what can be better than fixing an injured body and repairing a broken life.
The Role of Faith in Healing
This week there was a news story about how the famed British physicist, Stephen Hawking, concluded that the laws of physics are such that God is not necessary for the universe to have been formed. Spontaneous creation is possible, he says, without the intervention of a divine being. I say, fair enough, but then, how have the physical laws of the universe come about? If the universe “just exists” in infinite time, does life’s struggles have no meaning? I find that hard to believe. As a victim of ALS, Hawking must surely have doubts too.
For thirty years my wife and I have discussed and argued over the topic of God and religion. I’m not sure we have ever fully agreed on anything, except that everyone should be free to believe whatever their hearts tell them to believe. When it came to religion we struggled with what we should teach our children. For example, if, as taught by Christianity, no one can enter the kingdom of heaven except through our Lord Savior, Jesus Christ, does that mean Yoko’s loving parents (who were faithful Buddhists) are to be left outside the pearly gates for all eternity? Neither Yoko nor I believe God would be so arbitrary or cruel.
Yoko and I agree that no one can claim to have a definitive answer when it comes to the hereafter, if there is such a thing. So why argue over it? What you believe is a matter of faith – whether you are an atheist, Buddhist, Hindi, Christian, Muslim or Jew. Ultimately we concluded that our children should think for themselves and discover on their own what it is they believe.
I believe that faith comes from within and is held within our heart. True faith can’t be taught or learned. It is something we feel and know intuitively. It is literally our sixth sense.
I believe faith and spirituality has a real physical effect on our health and well-being. Invariably when people are sick or feeling hopeless, they turn to God. “We’ll keep you in our prayers” is the refrain of the faithful.
From my experience people with deep religious faith exhibit a certain calm and acceptance when faced with the diagnosis of a devastating disease. Faith may actually help them to recover. Studies have shown that people who attend church regularly are less likely to suffer from hypertension, exhibit lower death rates after certain kinds of surgery, and recover more quickly from serious illness.
The explanation is not necessarily attributable to an intervening God. People who attend church regularly have more social support than non-churchgoers, generally have healthier lifestyles, and are better able to cope with stress, which weakens the immune system. Simply believing that God heals (whether God plays an active role or not) may contribute to the healing process.
We become more serious about God when we’re sick because a serious illness forces us to consider our mortality. We have a sudden realization that death eventually comes to all of us. We want to believe that life has meaning and our “end” marks the beginning of our life everlasting.
My cancer diagnosis certainly made me more aware of my own beliefs and faith. I found myself praying more often and asking for people’s prayers. I’m not that unusual. A study of 200 elderly people in Kansas City showed that 91 percent said their initial response to a new medical problem is prayer. Prayer is frequently used as coping mechanism for dealing with serious disease.
Spirituality and healing has become more accepted in the medical community, which has traditionally not embraced the idea that faith plays a role in healing. Today more than a third of America’s 125 medical schools offer “faith in healing” curricula. Despite Hawking’s conclusions, we should thank God science is delving into the interplay between faith and medicine.
For thirty years my wife and I have discussed and argued over the topic of God and religion. I’m not sure we have ever fully agreed on anything, except that everyone should be free to believe whatever their hearts tell them to believe. When it came to religion we struggled with what we should teach our children. For example, if, as taught by Christianity, no one can enter the kingdom of heaven except through our Lord Savior, Jesus Christ, does that mean Yoko’s loving parents (who were faithful Buddhists) are to be left outside the pearly gates for all eternity? Neither Yoko nor I believe God would be so arbitrary or cruel.
Yoko and I agree that no one can claim to have a definitive answer when it comes to the hereafter, if there is such a thing. So why argue over it? What you believe is a matter of faith – whether you are an atheist, Buddhist, Hindi, Christian, Muslim or Jew. Ultimately we concluded that our children should think for themselves and discover on their own what it is they believe.
I believe that faith comes from within and is held within our heart. True faith can’t be taught or learned. It is something we feel and know intuitively. It is literally our sixth sense.
I believe faith and spirituality has a real physical effect on our health and well-being. Invariably when people are sick or feeling hopeless, they turn to God. “We’ll keep you in our prayers” is the refrain of the faithful.
From my experience people with deep religious faith exhibit a certain calm and acceptance when faced with the diagnosis of a devastating disease. Faith may actually help them to recover. Studies have shown that people who attend church regularly are less likely to suffer from hypertension, exhibit lower death rates after certain kinds of surgery, and recover more quickly from serious illness.
The explanation is not necessarily attributable to an intervening God. People who attend church regularly have more social support than non-churchgoers, generally have healthier lifestyles, and are better able to cope with stress, which weakens the immune system. Simply believing that God heals (whether God plays an active role or not) may contribute to the healing process.
We become more serious about God when we’re sick because a serious illness forces us to consider our mortality. We have a sudden realization that death eventually comes to all of us. We want to believe that life has meaning and our “end” marks the beginning of our life everlasting.
My cancer diagnosis certainly made me more aware of my own beliefs and faith. I found myself praying more often and asking for people’s prayers. I’m not that unusual. A study of 200 elderly people in Kansas City showed that 91 percent said their initial response to a new medical problem is prayer. Prayer is frequently used as coping mechanism for dealing with serious disease.
Spirituality and healing has become more accepted in the medical community, which has traditionally not embraced the idea that faith plays a role in healing. Today more than a third of America’s 125 medical schools offer “faith in healing” curricula. Despite Hawking’s conclusions, we should thank God science is delving into the interplay between faith and medicine.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Managing Cancer Care and Diabetes
I was very lucky. When I was diagnosed with lung cancer nearly three years ago I was symptomatic (I had a persistent cough) but thankfully I did not have any complicating issues or disease.
I did not know at the time that the medical world uses a scoring system to quantify a patient’s general well-being. I had a “performance status” of one when I was diagnosed (symptomatic but completely ambulatory.). A performance status indicating generally good health allowed my doctors to treat me without needing to account for how treatments would affect some other disease. Today I would be scored a zero (asymptomatic, fully active and able to carry on all activities without restriction.) If I have a cancer recurrence, my general good health should help me fight the disease. These days I work hard at trying to stay healthy.
I say I was lucky, because people with cancer frequently have other medical issues, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney disease, COPD, and so on. These patients are understandably more challenging for an oncologist to treat effectively.
I was surprised to learn that diabetics, despite seeing a doctor more often than most other people, appear to be less likely to be screened for cancer. That is disturbing on a number of fronts, not the least of which is the suspicion that there exists some link between cancer and diabetes. In fact, one estimate I found is that cancer rates among diabetics may be as high as 18%. The link between these two diseases is as yet unproven. Nevertheless, you would think that, given the high rate of cancer among diabetics, screening rates would be higher, not lower.
One Canadian study showed that the mammography rates for women with diabetes were more than 30% below their non-diabetic counterparts. The low screening rates in that study were attributed to “time constraints during office visits for complex disease care.” The upshot is that if you are diabetic, you may want to ask your physician about cancer screening and prevention.
Diabetic patients present treatment challenges for oncologists. For example, may diabetic patients may have pre-existing issues with their kidney or heart or suffer from neuropathy. All of theses conditions may be exacerbated by chemotherapy, depending on the agent being used. Cisplatin, which is what I was given, is known to impair the kidneys and cause peripheral neuropathy. But successful treatment typically requires that 85% of the chemo-therapeutic dose be given. Reducing the treatment dosage or timing to temper side effects may also impact the treatment’s efficacy. It is a difficult choice to have to make.
Diabetics face other challenges in being treated for cancer, with the largest being control of blood sugar levels. Treatment induced nausea and vomiting, for example, can be controlled with drugs, but steroid based anti-nausea drugs may in turn wreak havoc on controlling blood sugar levels and the amount of insulin a patient is required to take. Being able to maintain proper nutrition during cancer treatment is a challenge for a diabetic.
While the link between diabetes and cancer is not yet definitive, there are many common risk factors, including age, obesity, poor diet and lack of exercise. Prevention of diabetes is an important factor in fighting all cancers. People with diabetes double the risk of developing liver and pancreatic cancer. It is known to increase the risk for colorectal, breast and bladder cancer by 20% to 50%. In contrast, for some unknown reason, prostate cancer is less prevalent in men with diabetes. Go figure.
Research presented at ASCO this year showed that metformin, a drug commonly used in the treatment of type-2 diabetes, helped guard against tobacco-induced lung cancer in mice. More research is needed to see if this commonly used drug to treat diabetes is a potential lung cancer preventative in humans. Let’s hope research progresses soon.
I did not know at the time that the medical world uses a scoring system to quantify a patient’s general well-being. I had a “performance status” of one when I was diagnosed (symptomatic but completely ambulatory.). A performance status indicating generally good health allowed my doctors to treat me without needing to account for how treatments would affect some other disease. Today I would be scored a zero (asymptomatic, fully active and able to carry on all activities without restriction.) If I have a cancer recurrence, my general good health should help me fight the disease. These days I work hard at trying to stay healthy.
I say I was lucky, because people with cancer frequently have other medical issues, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney disease, COPD, and so on. These patients are understandably more challenging for an oncologist to treat effectively.
I was surprised to learn that diabetics, despite seeing a doctor more often than most other people, appear to be less likely to be screened for cancer. That is disturbing on a number of fronts, not the least of which is the suspicion that there exists some link between cancer and diabetes. In fact, one estimate I found is that cancer rates among diabetics may be as high as 18%. The link between these two diseases is as yet unproven. Nevertheless, you would think that, given the high rate of cancer among diabetics, screening rates would be higher, not lower.
One Canadian study showed that the mammography rates for women with diabetes were more than 30% below their non-diabetic counterparts. The low screening rates in that study were attributed to “time constraints during office visits for complex disease care.” The upshot is that if you are diabetic, you may want to ask your physician about cancer screening and prevention.
Diabetic patients present treatment challenges for oncologists. For example, may diabetic patients may have pre-existing issues with their kidney or heart or suffer from neuropathy. All of theses conditions may be exacerbated by chemotherapy, depending on the agent being used. Cisplatin, which is what I was given, is known to impair the kidneys and cause peripheral neuropathy. But successful treatment typically requires that 85% of the chemo-therapeutic dose be given. Reducing the treatment dosage or timing to temper side effects may also impact the treatment’s efficacy. It is a difficult choice to have to make.
Diabetics face other challenges in being treated for cancer, with the largest being control of blood sugar levels. Treatment induced nausea and vomiting, for example, can be controlled with drugs, but steroid based anti-nausea drugs may in turn wreak havoc on controlling blood sugar levels and the amount of insulin a patient is required to take. Being able to maintain proper nutrition during cancer treatment is a challenge for a diabetic.
While the link between diabetes and cancer is not yet definitive, there are many common risk factors, including age, obesity, poor diet and lack of exercise. Prevention of diabetes is an important factor in fighting all cancers. People with diabetes double the risk of developing liver and pancreatic cancer. It is known to increase the risk for colorectal, breast and bladder cancer by 20% to 50%. In contrast, for some unknown reason, prostate cancer is less prevalent in men with diabetes. Go figure.
Research presented at ASCO this year showed that metformin, a drug commonly used in the treatment of type-2 diabetes, helped guard against tobacco-induced lung cancer in mice. More research is needed to see if this commonly used drug to treat diabetes is a potential lung cancer preventative in humans. Let’s hope research progresses soon.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
American Food Culture
I have never been heavy, but since I was diagnosed with cancer, I have put on a few pounds. Actually, I’ve gained more than a few. I am 5 foot 10 inches tall and for most of my adult life, while living in Japan, I weighed less than 140 pounds. That’s pretty skinny.
I started gaining weight when we moved back from Japan in 1998. When I was diagnosed with cancer in 2007 I weighed about 150 lbs. During chemo and radiation treatment I lost a few pounds but since then I have continually gained weight. As of this writing I weigh 165 pounds and rising.
So why am I gaining weight? Well, one reason is my metabolism has slowed. It used to be that I could eat like a horse, drink like a fish, and not gain an ounce. Lately I have to watch what I eat and drink.
The main reason for my weight gain is what I put in my mouth. We eat and drink a lot of sweet things in this country and, as Yoko will tell you, I love sweet things, like pies, cookies, ice cream, and candy. When I lived in Japan I did not consume as much sweets as I do here. At work in Japan we would drink unsweetened hot green tea. Here I drink coffee with sugar and cream throughout the day. There is no question that hot green tea is better for you and less fattening.
A third reason for my weight gain has to do with the amount of exercise I get. I get in my car and drive to and from work. In fact, I drive everywhere. I’m walking the dog or riding my bike in the morning before work as a way to purposely get some exercise, but, obviously it is not enough. Fattening foods and the convenience of living a middle-class American lifestyle lends itself to weight gain.
In contrast, my daily routine in Japan was embedded with good eating and exercise. I typically walked 15 minutes to the train station in the morning and home again in the evening. During the day I would walk to and from the subway station and up and down stairs and then walk to appointments.
I easily walked two or three miles a day as well as up and down 10 to 15 stories of stairs. In short, I lead a pretty healthy lifestyle that allowed me to stay trim.
Of course, I ate a lot of fish and rice in Japan as well as steamed vegetables. The Japanese don’t use much butter or oil in their cooking and bread is not served with a Japanese meal. The only really bad thing the Japanese use regularly as an ingredient is soy sauce, which is high in sodium. Generally the Japanese don’t fry a lot of food in oil or eat a lot of meat. They boil things in water, steam-cook foods, grill, or prepare foods raw (like sushi or sashimi). Japanese cuisine is often described as “delicate.” Some might say “bland.” Meals are generally light and prepared in numerous small dishes. Steamed white rice is the staple. Japanese food culture offers a wide variety in tastes and textures.
Both Yoko and I bemoan America’s food culture and our unhealthy eating habits. We both think Americans generally lack education about good food and healthy eating. We find it hard to believe, for example, that children are allowed to choose what they eat at school. Do we really expect kids to make healthy food choices? It is little wonder that there is a growing obesity crisis in this country.
School lunch in Japan is determined by a committee of parents who collectively decide on what their kids will eat each day. Maybe that’s what we should do too. Are you listening school board?
I started gaining weight when we moved back from Japan in 1998. When I was diagnosed with cancer in 2007 I weighed about 150 lbs. During chemo and radiation treatment I lost a few pounds but since then I have continually gained weight. As of this writing I weigh 165 pounds and rising.
So why am I gaining weight? Well, one reason is my metabolism has slowed. It used to be that I could eat like a horse, drink like a fish, and not gain an ounce. Lately I have to watch what I eat and drink.
The main reason for my weight gain is what I put in my mouth. We eat and drink a lot of sweet things in this country and, as Yoko will tell you, I love sweet things, like pies, cookies, ice cream, and candy. When I lived in Japan I did not consume as much sweets as I do here. At work in Japan we would drink unsweetened hot green tea. Here I drink coffee with sugar and cream throughout the day. There is no question that hot green tea is better for you and less fattening.
A third reason for my weight gain has to do with the amount of exercise I get. I get in my car and drive to and from work. In fact, I drive everywhere. I’m walking the dog or riding my bike in the morning before work as a way to purposely get some exercise, but, obviously it is not enough. Fattening foods and the convenience of living a middle-class American lifestyle lends itself to weight gain.
In contrast, my daily routine in Japan was embedded with good eating and exercise. I typically walked 15 minutes to the train station in the morning and home again in the evening. During the day I would walk to and from the subway station and up and down stairs and then walk to appointments.
I easily walked two or three miles a day as well as up and down 10 to 15 stories of stairs. In short, I lead a pretty healthy lifestyle that allowed me to stay trim.
Of course, I ate a lot of fish and rice in Japan as well as steamed vegetables. The Japanese don’t use much butter or oil in their cooking and bread is not served with a Japanese meal. The only really bad thing the Japanese use regularly as an ingredient is soy sauce, which is high in sodium. Generally the Japanese don’t fry a lot of food in oil or eat a lot of meat. They boil things in water, steam-cook foods, grill, or prepare foods raw (like sushi or sashimi). Japanese cuisine is often described as “delicate.” Some might say “bland.” Meals are generally light and prepared in numerous small dishes. Steamed white rice is the staple. Japanese food culture offers a wide variety in tastes and textures.
Both Yoko and I bemoan America’s food culture and our unhealthy eating habits. We both think Americans generally lack education about good food and healthy eating. We find it hard to believe, for example, that children are allowed to choose what they eat at school. Do we really expect kids to make healthy food choices? It is little wonder that there is a growing obesity crisis in this country.
School lunch in Japan is determined by a committee of parents who collectively decide on what their kids will eat each day. Maybe that’s what we should do too. Are you listening school board?
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Clincial Trial Bottleneck
I always thought that clinical trials were something you considered doing as a patient when there were no other treatment options available. It made sense to me that you would try all the conventional treatment options first and then, if all else failed, resort to trial drugs. It’s a fair assumption, but it’s wrong. In many cases, using a trial drug first may be the better option.
A newly diagnosed cancer patient does not typically think to ask their physician what trials are available to them before beginning “standard of care” treatments. Most physicians are themselves are not familiar with all of the trials available and the eligibility criteria for participation. A quick search for lung cancer trials currently recruiting patients at the National Institute of Health’s website (www.clincialtrial.gov) reveals that there are over 1000 open trials related to lung cancer alone. There is no way to easily find a trial other than to do a search and narrow down or refine the criteria to meets your needs, condition and location. In many cases it will be up to the patient to find a clinical trial and then consult with their physician about the benefits of participating.
Clinical trials are an important part of cancer research and medical research in general. Unfortunately, the patients “accrual rates” for many studies are so low that trials are frequently closed for lack of participation. It’s estimated that only 3% of newly diagnosed cancer patients enroll in clinical trials – an exceedingly low number. I saw one study that declared that more than 40% of all oncology trials “don’t meet the minimum target for patient accruals.”
Clinical trials are the bottleneck to faster advancement in cancer research. We all have a stake in seeing cancer research advance more rapidly. A recent report from the National Cancer Institute estimates that 41 percent of Americans living today will develop cancer in their lifetime; one in four will eventually die from the disease.
One study that looked into the reasons for low accrual rates for cancer patients in clinical trials reveals that of the 276 patients studied only 14 percent ultimately participated in a trial. The most common reasons for patients not participating were elimination by their physician due to perceived availability or poor performance status; the desire for other treatment and distance from the available trial sites.
The Phase III Stimuvax trial I am enrolled in requires 1200 patients be recruited. There are 259 sites around the world participating in this particular trial with four here in Florida. It may take five years or more before 1200 patients are accrued and the study completed.
Before joining a trial, a participant must qualify for the study. Some research studies seek participants with illnesses or conditions to be studied, while others need healthy participants. Clinical trials require that patient sign a document that explains the risks and benefits of the trial, called an “Informed Consent.”
All clinical trials have guidelines about who can participate. The factors that allow someone to participate are called "inclusion criteria" and those that disallow someone from participating are called "exclusion criteria". These criteria are based on such factors as age, gender, the type and stage of a disease, previous treatment history, and other medical conditions.
In my case the inclusion criteria for enrolling in the Stimuvax trial was having been diagnosed with nonresectable Stage IIIA adenocarcinoma. Exclusion criteria included having any sign of metastatic disease. I also had to meet a strict time window from the end of conventional treatment to enrollment.
The internet makes it fairly easy to research available clinical trials. One day electronic medical records may automate matching patients with trials and improve recruitment. In the meantime, patients need to be their own advocate. Being proactive may get you access to state of the art medicine and the chance for a better future.
A newly diagnosed cancer patient does not typically think to ask their physician what trials are available to them before beginning “standard of care” treatments. Most physicians are themselves are not familiar with all of the trials available and the eligibility criteria for participation. A quick search for lung cancer trials currently recruiting patients at the National Institute of Health’s website (www.clincialtrial.gov) reveals that there are over 1000 open trials related to lung cancer alone. There is no way to easily find a trial other than to do a search and narrow down or refine the criteria to meets your needs, condition and location. In many cases it will be up to the patient to find a clinical trial and then consult with their physician about the benefits of participating.
Clinical trials are an important part of cancer research and medical research in general. Unfortunately, the patients “accrual rates” for many studies are so low that trials are frequently closed for lack of participation. It’s estimated that only 3% of newly diagnosed cancer patients enroll in clinical trials – an exceedingly low number. I saw one study that declared that more than 40% of all oncology trials “don’t meet the minimum target for patient accruals.”
Clinical trials are the bottleneck to faster advancement in cancer research. We all have a stake in seeing cancer research advance more rapidly. A recent report from the National Cancer Institute estimates that 41 percent of Americans living today will develop cancer in their lifetime; one in four will eventually die from the disease.
One study that looked into the reasons for low accrual rates for cancer patients in clinical trials reveals that of the 276 patients studied only 14 percent ultimately participated in a trial. The most common reasons for patients not participating were elimination by their physician due to perceived availability or poor performance status; the desire for other treatment and distance from the available trial sites.
The Phase III Stimuvax trial I am enrolled in requires 1200 patients be recruited. There are 259 sites around the world participating in this particular trial with four here in Florida. It may take five years or more before 1200 patients are accrued and the study completed.
Before joining a trial, a participant must qualify for the study. Some research studies seek participants with illnesses or conditions to be studied, while others need healthy participants. Clinical trials require that patient sign a document that explains the risks and benefits of the trial, called an “Informed Consent.”
All clinical trials have guidelines about who can participate. The factors that allow someone to participate are called "inclusion criteria" and those that disallow someone from participating are called "exclusion criteria". These criteria are based on such factors as age, gender, the type and stage of a disease, previous treatment history, and other medical conditions.
In my case the inclusion criteria for enrolling in the Stimuvax trial was having been diagnosed with nonresectable Stage IIIA adenocarcinoma. Exclusion criteria included having any sign of metastatic disease. I also had to meet a strict time window from the end of conventional treatment to enrollment.
The internet makes it fairly easy to research available clinical trials. One day electronic medical records may automate matching patients with trials and improve recruitment. In the meantime, patients need to be their own advocate. Being proactive may get you access to state of the art medicine and the chance for a better future.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
My First Staycation
Since Yoko and I have been married, we have taken numerous family trips and vacations. Most of the time, we were so busy on vacation we would arrive back home more exhausted than when we left! When we were living in Japan, we were 12 time zones away from my family. Now Yoko is 12 time zones from hers. Travel time to Tokyo is typically 24 hours, door to door, assuming a direct flight. With stopovers, it takes two or three days, round trip.
When I worked in Japan for Arthur Andersen, we were allowed two weeks for home leave, all expenses paid. Typically we would fly home from Japan using a direct flight, but sometimes we would plan our trip to spend time in Hawaii, one of my favorite vacation destinations. Stopping in Hawaii was a great way to transition between time zones and cultures and get a little caught up on sleep.
Home leave trips usually entailed a combination of vacation time with obligatory family visits, since we rarely had the chance to get home to see everyone. Between the time required for travel and visiting relatives, there was rarely little time left for real rest and relaxation.
When we lived in San Francisco for a brief period in the 80’s, we were busy just trying to get established. Money was tight and time was scarce. I remember taking Yoko and Paula, who was a baby, to Trinity Lake in the Cascades for a long weekend in June one year. We spent a day in a remote mountain cabin and then decided to rent a house boat to troll the lake. The scenery was peaceful and beautiful. The mountains were still snowcapped and we were in the middle of a gigantic lake in a huge national forest. No one was around. Yoko, who was born and raised in the big city, was scared that we would be attacked by animals, mugged by drifters, or be stranded without help in some remote cove. It was a nice vacation idea but, between bears, raccoons scratching around and the bats at night, it turned out to be less than restful.
One of my favorite vacations spots on the planet is Jackson Hole, Wyoming. In fact, we liked it so much the first time we went, we ended up buying a vacation rental on a butte overlooking the Grand Tetons. I remember one year going with Yoko and the kids to ski for Christmas. With the highest vertical drop in North America and light powdered snow, Jackson Hole is a fantastic place to ski, but what a hassle to get there and then return with ski equipment, winter clothing, gifts, etc.! Sadly, we only went once for a winter wonderland vacation.
Since getting out of Japan was so expensive and time consuming, we took short weekend vacations. We sometimes took the kids to Club Med in Hokkaido. You could fly to Sahoro from nearby Haneda Airport in about one hour and be on the ski slopes by late afternoon. While the kids were being entertained, Yoko and I could go off to enjoy ourselves without worry.
I had always wanted to take our family to Europe on vacation but never had the chance, since it was so far from Japan. After Hurricane Charley destroyed our house in August of 2004, I decided to take all the girls to London and Paris for a week, just to get out of town and give everyone something good to remember for that year. By that time, however, Paula was working and couldn’t go
.
Yoko and Jessie left today for Japan for a two week visit to see family and friends. I am at home with the dog reading, writing, and enjoying my first “staycation”. No cost. No jetlag. No bags. Yeah baby! Now that’s what I call a vacation!
When I worked in Japan for Arthur Andersen, we were allowed two weeks for home leave, all expenses paid. Typically we would fly home from Japan using a direct flight, but sometimes we would plan our trip to spend time in Hawaii, one of my favorite vacation destinations. Stopping in Hawaii was a great way to transition between time zones and cultures and get a little caught up on sleep.
Home leave trips usually entailed a combination of vacation time with obligatory family visits, since we rarely had the chance to get home to see everyone. Between the time required for travel and visiting relatives, there was rarely little time left for real rest and relaxation.
When we lived in San Francisco for a brief period in the 80’s, we were busy just trying to get established. Money was tight and time was scarce. I remember taking Yoko and Paula, who was a baby, to Trinity Lake in the Cascades for a long weekend in June one year. We spent a day in a remote mountain cabin and then decided to rent a house boat to troll the lake. The scenery was peaceful and beautiful. The mountains were still snowcapped and we were in the middle of a gigantic lake in a huge national forest. No one was around. Yoko, who was born and raised in the big city, was scared that we would be attacked by animals, mugged by drifters, or be stranded without help in some remote cove. It was a nice vacation idea but, between bears, raccoons scratching around and the bats at night, it turned out to be less than restful.
One of my favorite vacations spots on the planet is Jackson Hole, Wyoming. In fact, we liked it so much the first time we went, we ended up buying a vacation rental on a butte overlooking the Grand Tetons. I remember one year going with Yoko and the kids to ski for Christmas. With the highest vertical drop in North America and light powdered snow, Jackson Hole is a fantastic place to ski, but what a hassle to get there and then return with ski equipment, winter clothing, gifts, etc.! Sadly, we only went once for a winter wonderland vacation.
Since getting out of Japan was so expensive and time consuming, we took short weekend vacations. We sometimes took the kids to Club Med in Hokkaido. You could fly to Sahoro from nearby Haneda Airport in about one hour and be on the ski slopes by late afternoon. While the kids were being entertained, Yoko and I could go off to enjoy ourselves without worry.
I had always wanted to take our family to Europe on vacation but never had the chance, since it was so far from Japan. After Hurricane Charley destroyed our house in August of 2004, I decided to take all the girls to London and Paris for a week, just to get out of town and give everyone something good to remember for that year. By that time, however, Paula was working and couldn’t go
.
Yoko and Jessie left today for Japan for a two week visit to see family and friends. I am at home with the dog reading, writing, and enjoying my first “staycation”. No cost. No jetlag. No bags. Yeah baby! Now that’s what I call a vacation!
Monday, July 5, 2010
Research Breakthroughs and the Road Ahead
On Friday I got a phone call from the clinic that is conducting the clinical trial for Stimuvax, the trial drug I am taking. The research had been suspended because patients in the trial, for unknown reasons, had developed encephalitis. The phone call was to let me know that the trial had now been given the green light to go forward. I am due to get my next shots tomorrow.
Every six weeks for the past two years I have travelled to New Port Richey to receive these vaccinations. I will continue to go for the shots until there is progression of the disease, which is the first endpoint of the study. In the Phase II trials of this drug, time to progression was 36 months for people on Stimuvax versus 17 months for those taking a placebo. In August I will have been on the drug for 24 months. While I don’t know if I am getting the drug or a placebo, I’ve always suspected I was getting the drug. My continued good health is nothing short of a miracle.
The theory of Stimuvax is that it works to boost your immune system to fight cancerous cells – not exactly a novel idea. This was the approach used by Dr. Royal Rife back in the 1930’s; it is also the approach being used by various alternative treatment practitioners highlighted in Suzanne Somers’ book, “Knockout.” Interestingly, strengthening the body’s immune system to fight cancer is now becoming more of the conventional wisdom in drug therapy. At the ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology) Convention in Chicago last month study results from several new drugs that target the immune system got a lot of attention in the press.
One drug, ipilimumab, from Bristol Myers, is designed to enhance the immune system and increase the survival rate for people with advanced melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer. Patients taking the new drug lived an average of 10 months versus 6 months for patients taking a comparison drug, GP100. More than 45% of patients taking the new drug were alive after one year, compared with 25% of the patients who received the GP100 vaccine. Ipilimumab is a monoclonal antibody, a biologic drug derived from living cells. It works by activating T-cells, part of the immune system, to help fight cancer cell growth.
Targeting drugs for people with certain genetic mutations also seems to be the wave of the future. Pfizer is now testing the drug crizotinib, which appears to shrink tumors in lung cancer patients with certain genetic mutations. The discovery was a lucky happenstance. Pfizer initially thought crizotinib would work to inhibit C-met, an enzyme that is alleged to feed tumor growth. Company researchers noticed that the drug also worked on another enzyme, anaplastic lymphoma kinase or ALK, also thought to be involved with tumor growth. Researchers in Japan subsequently found that fusion of ALK with another gene was a contributor to lung cancer.
Roughly 3 -5% of lung cancer patients or about 40,000 people annually worldwide, have the ALK mutation. Pfizer conducted a clinical trial on patients who have the mutation. Most were either light smokers or never smoked. The average age was 50. The drug, an oral pill, was taken twice daily. Results so far are very promising. Of the 82 patients tested, roughly 90% experienced tumor shrinkage or stabilization. Pfizer is now moving on to the Stage III Clinic trial.
The ASCO Convention also saw the announcement of two new drugs – Sprycel and Tasigna, to treat leukemia and possibly replace the miracle drug, Gleevec, which has been the standard of care for leukemia since it was first introduced in 2001.
I’m happy that research is finally starting to get somewhere. It is heartening to know that new avenues of treatment may be available to me down the road.
Every six weeks for the past two years I have travelled to New Port Richey to receive these vaccinations. I will continue to go for the shots until there is progression of the disease, which is the first endpoint of the study. In the Phase II trials of this drug, time to progression was 36 months for people on Stimuvax versus 17 months for those taking a placebo. In August I will have been on the drug for 24 months. While I don’t know if I am getting the drug or a placebo, I’ve always suspected I was getting the drug. My continued good health is nothing short of a miracle.
The theory of Stimuvax is that it works to boost your immune system to fight cancerous cells – not exactly a novel idea. This was the approach used by Dr. Royal Rife back in the 1930’s; it is also the approach being used by various alternative treatment practitioners highlighted in Suzanne Somers’ book, “Knockout.” Interestingly, strengthening the body’s immune system to fight cancer is now becoming more of the conventional wisdom in drug therapy. At the ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology) Convention in Chicago last month study results from several new drugs that target the immune system got a lot of attention in the press.
One drug, ipilimumab, from Bristol Myers, is designed to enhance the immune system and increase the survival rate for people with advanced melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer. Patients taking the new drug lived an average of 10 months versus 6 months for patients taking a comparison drug, GP100. More than 45% of patients taking the new drug were alive after one year, compared with 25% of the patients who received the GP100 vaccine. Ipilimumab is a monoclonal antibody, a biologic drug derived from living cells. It works by activating T-cells, part of the immune system, to help fight cancer cell growth.
Targeting drugs for people with certain genetic mutations also seems to be the wave of the future. Pfizer is now testing the drug crizotinib, which appears to shrink tumors in lung cancer patients with certain genetic mutations. The discovery was a lucky happenstance. Pfizer initially thought crizotinib would work to inhibit C-met, an enzyme that is alleged to feed tumor growth. Company researchers noticed that the drug also worked on another enzyme, anaplastic lymphoma kinase or ALK, also thought to be involved with tumor growth. Researchers in Japan subsequently found that fusion of ALK with another gene was a contributor to lung cancer.
Roughly 3 -5% of lung cancer patients or about 40,000 people annually worldwide, have the ALK mutation. Pfizer conducted a clinical trial on patients who have the mutation. Most were either light smokers or never smoked. The average age was 50. The drug, an oral pill, was taken twice daily. Results so far are very promising. Of the 82 patients tested, roughly 90% experienced tumor shrinkage or stabilization. Pfizer is now moving on to the Stage III Clinic trial.
The ASCO Convention also saw the announcement of two new drugs – Sprycel and Tasigna, to treat leukemia and possibly replace the miracle drug, Gleevec, which has been the standard of care for leukemia since it was first introduced in 2001.
I’m happy that research is finally starting to get somewhere. It is heartening to know that new avenues of treatment may be available to me down the road.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Good Process / Good Results
I have to say I have become very cynical about the world. Maybe it’s because I am getting older and have gained some perspective. Or was I naïve for most of my life? I never considered people’s motives when it came to healthcare, science, the law, economic policy, and the like. I am realizing how devoted people are to their own self-interest, which, I have to say, it is disheartening. I grew up when Camelot was big on Broadway, and I thought of people in general as being “pure of heart” and self sacrificing like Lancelot . I wish the world were so.
I had a discussion this week with a fellow at the office about the financial regulatory reform measures now winding their way through Congress. I don’t know what the end result is going to be, but I do suspect that there is more than politics as usual going on. My friend’s thesis is that the Democrats are driving the process in such a way as to be in a position to squeeze Wall Street for greater campaign contributions for the upcoming fall elections. Is this really the way the system should work? Are politicians gaming legislative processes as a way of squeezing campaign contributions from Wall Street?
President Obama has said that he would use “every resource at his disposal” to deal with the oil spill in the Gulf, yet he has refused to accept offers of aid from 13 countries. Some countries have superior technology to fight an offshore spill of this magnitude. According to one story I read, Dutch and Belgian dredgers have the technology in-house and special vessels to fight the spill, but Jones Act, protectionist legislation passed in the 1920’s, prevents them from working in the US. The Jones Act requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports be carried in U.S.-flag ships, constructed in the United States, owned by U.S. citizens, and crewed by U.S. citizens and U.S. permanent residents. In a national emergency Obama could waive the requirements of the Jones Act, but he has failed to act. In the face of this disaster you have to wonder why? Could it be that he doesn’t want to offend his labor union supporters?
I’m a big believer in “good process, good results.” In fact, it is how the Japanese learned to manufacture quality goods. W. Edwards Deming, an American statistician, taught the Japanese statistical techniques used to dissect processes to learn what leads to bad results. The goal was to improve the process and thereby improve the results. Today the Japanese strive for perfection and zero defects. We American’s seem to be satisfied with standards that are “within tolerance.” Another way to say it is tolerable (not necessarily good) results.
Good processes do not always result in good outcomes, but it certainly improves the chances of getting things right. We need to be constantly asking ourselves if the processes we have in place are going to help us get the results we are looking for. Speaking of which…
I went for my CT/Pet Scan this week and was anxious to hear the results, so I sat with the radiologist after the scans were completed and we reviewed the pictures together, from head to toe. Thankfully, the radiologist could find no evidence of disease. It is the best of all possible outcomes and I am so grateful to be alive and healthy. I am now looking forward to marking my third anniversary of life since my diagnosis.
Thinking about this makes me wonder if it was just luck or something else that has kept me alive to date. I think good process has been integral to my recovery. We had a plan. We worked the plan systematically. We used all available resources to get the best possible outcome, and it worked!
Let’s pray the Gulf of Mexico is as lucky.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Getting Back in the Saddle
When my children were little, we lived in Tokyo, where I worked for the now defunct accounting firm, Arthur Andersen & Co. Yoko’s parents only lived 30 minutes away and we would regularly go to visit.
Japanese homes are very small and not conducive to having company, so it wouldn’t be long before someone would suggest that we take the kids to the park. Yoko’s parents lived across the street from “Baji Koen” – literally translated “Equestrian Park” where our girls played on the swings and jungle gym. From time to time there would be horse shows taking place at the park, which was built as the equestrian venue for the 1964 Olympics.
After admiring the skill of the riders in a show one year, I casually remarked to Yoko that it would be fun to learn to ride. Yoko took me seriously and within a week or two made it happen. After doing some investigation, she discovered the riding school Avalon, less than five minutes from our home.
We would go to Avalon on the weekends to hang out in the coffee shop and watch the riders practicing in the arena for hours on end. Eventually I enrolled in the school, bought the necessary riding equipment, and began to learn the skills of dressage and show-jumping.
Like any sport or activity in Japan, equestrian riding has a ranking system. You have to show proficiency at each level to advance to the next. After about five years of riding I became a top ranked rider, licensed to show in competition. At some point along the way I needed to have my own horse in order to advance. That lead to the purchase of an Arabian we named Tis Adore. For about five years my life outside of work was largely spent at Avalon riding and grooming horses.
Once I left the employ of Arthur Andersen, it was hard to keep up with the expense of keeping a horse in Tokyo. Sadly, I had to give up Tis Adore and riding in 1995. I have not been on a horse since until recently.
People who don’t ride generally don’t realize what an extremely aerobic sport it is. While it may look as though the horse is doing all the work, the rider is using nearly every muscle in his or her body to maintain proper “seat” and balance and keep the horse relaxed and under control. I remember the first time I jumped a horse in a show; I rode a fairly easy circuit in about one minute. I was astonished to find that my legs were so weakened that I could hardly stand after dismounting.
I have not been on a strenuous exercise regiment since I gave up riding. I golf every week, ride a bike or walk the dog every day, but none of these produces the aerobic exercise I know I need. Joining a gym to run or lifting weights is just not my thing. I would rather play a sport or do something that produces a sweat.
A friend of mine has been caring for two horses here at a local stables. One her daughter rides. The second horse has issues and is not being exercised much. Knowing that I use to ride, I was recently invited down to see the horse and take her around the arena. It’s been nearly 15 years since I have been on a horse. I was happy to know that after all these years I could still remember the basics.
I’ve taken up an invitation to ride her horse a few days a week (flat work only) and share the expense of boarding. I bought new gear (which I lost in Hurricane Charley) and oiled up my saddle. I’m looking to forward to getting back in the saddle and getting back into shape.
Japanese homes are very small and not conducive to having company, so it wouldn’t be long before someone would suggest that we take the kids to the park. Yoko’s parents lived across the street from “Baji Koen” – literally translated “Equestrian Park” where our girls played on the swings and jungle gym. From time to time there would be horse shows taking place at the park, which was built as the equestrian venue for the 1964 Olympics.
After admiring the skill of the riders in a show one year, I casually remarked to Yoko that it would be fun to learn to ride. Yoko took me seriously and within a week or two made it happen. After doing some investigation, she discovered the riding school Avalon, less than five minutes from our home.
We would go to Avalon on the weekends to hang out in the coffee shop and watch the riders practicing in the arena for hours on end. Eventually I enrolled in the school, bought the necessary riding equipment, and began to learn the skills of dressage and show-jumping.
Like any sport or activity in Japan, equestrian riding has a ranking system. You have to show proficiency at each level to advance to the next. After about five years of riding I became a top ranked rider, licensed to show in competition. At some point along the way I needed to have my own horse in order to advance. That lead to the purchase of an Arabian we named Tis Adore. For about five years my life outside of work was largely spent at Avalon riding and grooming horses.
Once I left the employ of Arthur Andersen, it was hard to keep up with the expense of keeping a horse in Tokyo. Sadly, I had to give up Tis Adore and riding in 1995. I have not been on a horse since until recently.
People who don’t ride generally don’t realize what an extremely aerobic sport it is. While it may look as though the horse is doing all the work, the rider is using nearly every muscle in his or her body to maintain proper “seat” and balance and keep the horse relaxed and under control. I remember the first time I jumped a horse in a show; I rode a fairly easy circuit in about one minute. I was astonished to find that my legs were so weakened that I could hardly stand after dismounting.
I have not been on a strenuous exercise regiment since I gave up riding. I golf every week, ride a bike or walk the dog every day, but none of these produces the aerobic exercise I know I need. Joining a gym to run or lifting weights is just not my thing. I would rather play a sport or do something that produces a sweat.
A friend of mine has been caring for two horses here at a local stables. One her daughter rides. The second horse has issues and is not being exercised much. Knowing that I use to ride, I was recently invited down to see the horse and take her around the arena. It’s been nearly 15 years since I have been on a horse. I was happy to know that after all these years I could still remember the basics.
I’ve taken up an invitation to ride her horse a few days a week (flat work only) and share the expense of boarding. I bought new gear (which I lost in Hurricane Charley) and oiled up my saddle. I’m looking to forward to getting back in the saddle and getting back into shape.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Getting the Incentives Right
I never took psychology in school and it is definitely one of my weak points. I am not good at using psychology, since I am ignorant of even the very basic tenets. I read a book called “On Success” by famed investor Charlie Munger, who talked about how important psychology is in business and management. After reading what he had to say, I really felt like there was a huge hole in my education.
Munger, who was self-taught in psychology, came up with his own list of human tendencies or behavioral patterns, one of which he calls the “Reward and Punishment Super Response Tendency.” This is the first on his list of twenty-five human tendencies, in recognition of how important incentive and disincentive is to human behavior. Munger summarizes the issue with a famous quote from a Soviet worker: “They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work.” Munger says that the most important rule in management is to “get the incentives right.”
He describes how Federal Express at first struggled to get packages shifted rapidly between aircraft at the central hub each night. Everything they tried did not get the task accomplished quickly enough. Then someone had the brilliant idea to pay the night shift by the shift, rather than by the hour, and let them go home early if all the planes were loaded. That simple and elegant solution worked.
Munger talks about what he calls “incentive-caused bias” that leads to immoral behavior. His example is a surgeon in Lincoln Nebraska who removed “bushel baskets full of normal healthy gallbladders”. This medical fraud was rationalized by the surgeon, who believed the gallbladder was the source of all disease. He was well paid to exercise his talent, whether the patient needed the gallbladder removed or not. HE was eventually removed from the medical profession and rightly charged with malpractice.
Incentive-caused bias is prevalent in every business and profession. Bad or immoral behavior, according to Munger, is “intensely habit forming when well rewarded.” We have certainly seen many examples of this in recent years. Enron’s manipulative accounting misdeeds, Bernie Madoff’s gigantic Ponzi scheme, the whole residential mortgage debacle, are examples of immoral behavior well rewarded. In my profession, it’s the insurance salesman who’s only and every answer to making an investment recommendation is an annuity that pays a high commission.
It appears to me that poorly designed incentives and controls are at the core of bad behavior in every case.
There’s an old saying that says, if the only tool in the draw is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. We keep banging away at cancer, using chemo, radiation and surgery without getting significantly better results. Could it be that alternative treatments are less lucrative than the orthodox treatments and therefore not pursued? Are cancer patients the unwitting victims of incentive-caused bias by the medical profession?
Munger muses that the cash register was a great moral instrument when it was created. It ended the inventor’s employees from stealing him blind. Widespread incentive-caused bias in all human endeavors causes Munger to distrust professional advice, especially if it is good for the advisor. How would Munger feel if he were a cancer patient?
I got to thinking about this incentive-caused bias in relation to cancer treatment. It makes me wonder if drug companies, insurance companies and the medical industry as a whole, are properly incented to do what is best for patients. Certainly that should be the goal, but incentive-caused bias may make some treatment alternatives more attractive than others.
What is the equivalent of the cash register when it comes to treating cancer? The role of government regulation should be to ensure that the medical industry does what is best for patients. Maybe we should start by examining the incentive-caused bias in medicine. Reform needs to ensure that we get the incentives right.
Munger, who was self-taught in psychology, came up with his own list of human tendencies or behavioral patterns, one of which he calls the “Reward and Punishment Super Response Tendency.” This is the first on his list of twenty-five human tendencies, in recognition of how important incentive and disincentive is to human behavior. Munger summarizes the issue with a famous quote from a Soviet worker: “They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work.” Munger says that the most important rule in management is to “get the incentives right.”
He describes how Federal Express at first struggled to get packages shifted rapidly between aircraft at the central hub each night. Everything they tried did not get the task accomplished quickly enough. Then someone had the brilliant idea to pay the night shift by the shift, rather than by the hour, and let them go home early if all the planes were loaded. That simple and elegant solution worked.
Munger talks about what he calls “incentive-caused bias” that leads to immoral behavior. His example is a surgeon in Lincoln Nebraska who removed “bushel baskets full of normal healthy gallbladders”. This medical fraud was rationalized by the surgeon, who believed the gallbladder was the source of all disease. He was well paid to exercise his talent, whether the patient needed the gallbladder removed or not. HE was eventually removed from the medical profession and rightly charged with malpractice.
Incentive-caused bias is prevalent in every business and profession. Bad or immoral behavior, according to Munger, is “intensely habit forming when well rewarded.” We have certainly seen many examples of this in recent years. Enron’s manipulative accounting misdeeds, Bernie Madoff’s gigantic Ponzi scheme, the whole residential mortgage debacle, are examples of immoral behavior well rewarded. In my profession, it’s the insurance salesman who’s only and every answer to making an investment recommendation is an annuity that pays a high commission.
It appears to me that poorly designed incentives and controls are at the core of bad behavior in every case.
There’s an old saying that says, if the only tool in the draw is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. We keep banging away at cancer, using chemo, radiation and surgery without getting significantly better results. Could it be that alternative treatments are less lucrative than the orthodox treatments and therefore not pursued? Are cancer patients the unwitting victims of incentive-caused bias by the medical profession?
Munger muses that the cash register was a great moral instrument when it was created. It ended the inventor’s employees from stealing him blind. Widespread incentive-caused bias in all human endeavors causes Munger to distrust professional advice, especially if it is good for the advisor. How would Munger feel if he were a cancer patient?
I got to thinking about this incentive-caused bias in relation to cancer treatment. It makes me wonder if drug companies, insurance companies and the medical industry as a whole, are properly incented to do what is best for patients. Certainly that should be the goal, but incentive-caused bias may make some treatment alternatives more attractive than others.
What is the equivalent of the cash register when it comes to treating cancer? The role of government regulation should be to ensure that the medical industry does what is best for patients. Maybe we should start by examining the incentive-caused bias in medicine. Reform needs to ensure that we get the incentives right.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Is the War on Cancer Over?
I watched a CBS 60 Minute story tonight about phthalates, a chemical that resides in nearly everything made of plastic that needs to be soft and flexible – shower curtains, beach balls, rubber ducks, to name but a few. These chemicals, which are used in thousands of everyday items, are allegedly linked to deformity in male genitalia, congenital hernias and changes in the hormonal balances of men. But is it really any surprise that chemicals (of any sort) in our environment have a potential negative impact on our health or our progeny?
The experts that accuse phthalates of having potential to do harm cannot say anything definitive about the toxic effect of these chemicals without “more data”. And, of course, the chemical manufacturers that make these substances deny there is any linkage to birth deformities, even though data proving this does not exist. Last year congress, “split the baby”, so to speak, by banning certain phthalates from use in toys.
When I was a kid, it seemed like we were a nation that had all the answers. John Wayne and the Lone Ranger persuaded me that the good guys in white hats always prevailed. Right won over might, usually just in the nick of time.
I grew up in an America that gloried in winning World War II. When I was a kid our nation was fighting communism and the cold war. We were the predominant economic power having invented and manufactured many of the world’s modern conveniences – the electric light, the automobile, the telephone, the airplane, the transistor, and the television. I was seven years old when John Kennedy inspired our nation to reach for the stars. In less than 10 years we landed on the moon. It seemed there was nothing we couldn’t do.
In my lifetime, America has always been the leading political, military, economic and technological power. It still is, but I have to say that, lately, my faith in America to get to the truth, figure out what’s right for the nation, and move forward with good public policy has been shaken.
I have a hard time fathoming that we could allow drilling in the ocean with deep water rigs and not have a contingency plan for a blow-out oil disaster, like the one unfolding in the Gulf. Are you kidding me? Isn’t it common sense that the government would require contingency disaster plans before issuing permits for offshore drilling? All I can say is that if they didn’t imagine this kind of thing could happen, they don’t have much of an imagination, which brings me to the topic of government sponsored cancer research.
Richard Nixon declared a “War on Cancer” in 1971, yet here we are nearly four decades later no closer to a cure than we were back then. In fact, no one talks about a cure any longer. Today, we only speak of treatments.
The basic approach to treating cancer has not changed in 50 years. The tools are new and improved, but the strategy is the same – search and destroy cancerous cells using chemotherapy, surgery and radiation. There is nothing new or radically innovative or imaginative in our approach, so it’s hard to see how the outcome will change. As my father use to say, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. Perhaps it’s finally time to look at other approaches.
Someone recommended that I read Suzanne Somers’s book “Knockout: Interviews with Doctors Who Are Curing Cancer.” I purchased a copy to see what she had to say. The doctors she interviewed have interesting new strategies about curing cancer that does not involve search and destroy treatments. Why aren’t some of these non-toxic “cures” being seriously tested? First I need to find an oncologist even willing to read the book.
The experts that accuse phthalates of having potential to do harm cannot say anything definitive about the toxic effect of these chemicals without “more data”. And, of course, the chemical manufacturers that make these substances deny there is any linkage to birth deformities, even though data proving this does not exist. Last year congress, “split the baby”, so to speak, by banning certain phthalates from use in toys.
When I was a kid, it seemed like we were a nation that had all the answers. John Wayne and the Lone Ranger persuaded me that the good guys in white hats always prevailed. Right won over might, usually just in the nick of time.
I grew up in an America that gloried in winning World War II. When I was a kid our nation was fighting communism and the cold war. We were the predominant economic power having invented and manufactured many of the world’s modern conveniences – the electric light, the automobile, the telephone, the airplane, the transistor, and the television. I was seven years old when John Kennedy inspired our nation to reach for the stars. In less than 10 years we landed on the moon. It seemed there was nothing we couldn’t do.
In my lifetime, America has always been the leading political, military, economic and technological power. It still is, but I have to say that, lately, my faith in America to get to the truth, figure out what’s right for the nation, and move forward with good public policy has been shaken.
I have a hard time fathoming that we could allow drilling in the ocean with deep water rigs and not have a contingency plan for a blow-out oil disaster, like the one unfolding in the Gulf. Are you kidding me? Isn’t it common sense that the government would require contingency disaster plans before issuing permits for offshore drilling? All I can say is that if they didn’t imagine this kind of thing could happen, they don’t have much of an imagination, which brings me to the topic of government sponsored cancer research.
Richard Nixon declared a “War on Cancer” in 1971, yet here we are nearly four decades later no closer to a cure than we were back then. In fact, no one talks about a cure any longer. Today, we only speak of treatments.
The basic approach to treating cancer has not changed in 50 years. The tools are new and improved, but the strategy is the same – search and destroy cancerous cells using chemotherapy, surgery and radiation. There is nothing new or radically innovative or imaginative in our approach, so it’s hard to see how the outcome will change. As my father use to say, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. Perhaps it’s finally time to look at other approaches.
Someone recommended that I read Suzanne Somers’s book “Knockout: Interviews with Doctors Who Are Curing Cancer.” I purchased a copy to see what she had to say. The doctors she interviewed have interesting new strategies about curing cancer that does not involve search and destroy treatments. Why aren’t some of these non-toxic “cures” being seriously tested? First I need to find an oncologist even willing to read the book.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
FDA Approves Tarceva for Expanded Use
Ever since they suspended the clinical trial of the maintenance drug I was on, I have worried that am doing nothing to proactively prevent a recurrence. I feel like I am just waiting around for cancer to strike again. It makes me uncomfortable and anxious. I would rather take the fight to the enemy than do nothing. So I have been reading up on things I can do on my own.
One of the best things I can do is fight this disease with nutrition. Everything that I have been reading has led me to believe that the key to cancer-free health is good nutrition. Fruits and vegetables that are high in antioxidants are known to be beneficial. I am drinking POM Wonderful (pomegranate juice) nearly every day.
I was approached by one multi level marketer recently who recommended a drink called Xango, which is made from the mangosteen fruit. I tried a complementary bottle. It is better tasting than Mona Vie, which is made out of the acai berry, but I think they are in the same class of product – high priced juice drinks with potential (although unproven) health benefits. (I think I’d be just as well off with low-priced fruit juice concentrates from Publix.)
I’ve been complaining about our Food and Drug Administration for some weeks now because I don’t see them doing anything useful, (except creating roadblocks and obstacles to cancer research and fretting about innocuous fruit drinks that may actually be helpful.)
As they did for POM Wonderful, the FDA did put out warning letters to the makers of both Xango and Mona Vie to not make medical claims about their products in their advertising. But does that mean these drinks don’t have any medicinal benefit? No. What I think it means is that they don’t have any measured benefits meeting the FDAs scientific standards for a “drug.”
This is the same FDA that recently approved the chemotherapy drug Tarceva (erlotinib) as maintenance therapy for patients with locally advanced metastatic lung cancer, despite a nearly unanimous (11-1) vote AGAINST expanded use of the drug by the FDA’s own panel of experts who examined the evidence.
Why do you think the powers that be in the FDA overruled its own experts?
In the SATURN trial, nearly 900 patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer received four cycles of first-line platinum-based chemotherapy. Patients were then split into two groups: one received placebo, and the other received maintenance Tarceva.
For patients on Tarceva, median progression-free survival (the time before the cancer progressed) reached 12.3 weeks, compared with 11.1 weeks for patients taking placebo. The Tarceva group lived only slightly longer, with median overall survival reaching 12 months for patients on Tarceva versus 11 months for those on placebo.
Sounds to me like Tarceva as a “maintenance drug” has as much benefit as POM Wonderful, Xango, or Mona Vie. Only Tarceva costs around $2000 per month, about 20 times more than high-priced medicinal juice!
Until now Tarceva has been limited to use for advanced lung cancer that grew or spread after first line chemotherapy. Tarceva, an oral drug, is known to work well for those people who have the EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor) gene mutation, which is only about 10% of lung cancer patients with non-small cell lung cancer.
At the National Lung Cancer Advocate Summit a few weeks ago, some of us fighting for lung cancer research were dumfounded that the FDA would approve expanded use of Tarceva for maintenance therapy when we know that it does NOT work for most lung cancer patients.
OSI Pharmaceuticals, the maker of Tarceva, is surely pleased to now have approval to market their drug to a much larger universe of patients. It won’t be long before we see TV commercials for the approved use, no doubt, urging lung cancer patients to “ask your doctor about Tarceva.” It’s an abomination.
One of the best things I can do is fight this disease with nutrition. Everything that I have been reading has led me to believe that the key to cancer-free health is good nutrition. Fruits and vegetables that are high in antioxidants are known to be beneficial. I am drinking POM Wonderful (pomegranate juice) nearly every day.
I was approached by one multi level marketer recently who recommended a drink called Xango, which is made from the mangosteen fruit. I tried a complementary bottle. It is better tasting than Mona Vie, which is made out of the acai berry, but I think they are in the same class of product – high priced juice drinks with potential (although unproven) health benefits. (I think I’d be just as well off with low-priced fruit juice concentrates from Publix.)
I’ve been complaining about our Food and Drug Administration for some weeks now because I don’t see them doing anything useful, (except creating roadblocks and obstacles to cancer research and fretting about innocuous fruit drinks that may actually be helpful.)
As they did for POM Wonderful, the FDA did put out warning letters to the makers of both Xango and Mona Vie to not make medical claims about their products in their advertising. But does that mean these drinks don’t have any medicinal benefit? No. What I think it means is that they don’t have any measured benefits meeting the FDAs scientific standards for a “drug.”
This is the same FDA that recently approved the chemotherapy drug Tarceva (erlotinib) as maintenance therapy for patients with locally advanced metastatic lung cancer, despite a nearly unanimous (11-1) vote AGAINST expanded use of the drug by the FDA’s own panel of experts who examined the evidence.
Why do you think the powers that be in the FDA overruled its own experts?
In the SATURN trial, nearly 900 patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer received four cycles of first-line platinum-based chemotherapy. Patients were then split into two groups: one received placebo, and the other received maintenance Tarceva.
For patients on Tarceva, median progression-free survival (the time before the cancer progressed) reached 12.3 weeks, compared with 11.1 weeks for patients taking placebo. The Tarceva group lived only slightly longer, with median overall survival reaching 12 months for patients on Tarceva versus 11 months for those on placebo.
Sounds to me like Tarceva as a “maintenance drug” has as much benefit as POM Wonderful, Xango, or Mona Vie. Only Tarceva costs around $2000 per month, about 20 times more than high-priced medicinal juice!
Until now Tarceva has been limited to use for advanced lung cancer that grew or spread after first line chemotherapy. Tarceva, an oral drug, is known to work well for those people who have the EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor) gene mutation, which is only about 10% of lung cancer patients with non-small cell lung cancer.
At the National Lung Cancer Advocate Summit a few weeks ago, some of us fighting for lung cancer research were dumfounded that the FDA would approve expanded use of Tarceva for maintenance therapy when we know that it does NOT work for most lung cancer patients.
OSI Pharmaceuticals, the maker of Tarceva, is surely pleased to now have approval to market their drug to a much larger universe of patients. It won’t be long before we see TV commercials for the approved use, no doubt, urging lung cancer patients to “ask your doctor about Tarceva.” It’s an abomination.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Getting Back to Basics
When I was first diagnosed with lung cancer, I couldn’t contemplate any future or make any plans. As time has gone on, however, things have returned to normal and I am again thinking about what comes next and what our life will be like down the road a bit. I am feeling so well these days, it is hard to imagine that I could relapse at any time.
Yoko and I are making travel plans for this summer. She has to return to Japan to attend her mother’s seven year memorial service in August. It’s customary in Japan to remember loved ones who have passed on the third and seventh anniversary of their death. So, Yoko and Jessie are going to Tokyo together at the end of July.
We decided that Yoko, Moe and I will drive to Blue Ridge, Georgia the week prior to her departure. We’ll spend a few days together in a mountain cabin. Then, at the end of the week I will drive Yoko to Atlanta so she can catch a plane to Tokyo.
I’m going to return to Blue Ridge by myself while Yoko is gone and try to finish a screenplay I started years ago. A few weeks of uninterrupted effort is all I need to finally finish the job.
We decided to make a dry run and fly to Blue Ridge this weekend to check out cabins and become familiar with the place. When we return in the summer we’ll take the car, but for this short weekend trip we decided to fly.
I have to say I am glad I don’t travel by air as much as I once did. I can’t stand the hassle and intrusion of airport security, the mobs of people, the delays and stress of making connections, the screaming babies who are invariably seated near you, and the airlines’ consistently poor service. On this latest flight the “meal service” offered was a bag of salted peanuts. Yippee.
Lately I have become more acutely aware that our national life is changing and not for the better. Every day I wake up and things seem worse than they were before. Nothing is as it was and everything is more complex. Sometimes I wonder if simplifying and getting back to basics wouldn’t be better.
In Blue Ridge today there was a “classic car” show on Main Street. Most of the cars being shown were beautifully restored models from the 50’s and 60’s. I could look at the gleaming, chrome-plated engines and actually see how everything fit together and worked. I can’t say that if I look under the hood of a car today I could really tell what’s what.
The log cabin we are staying in has all the modern conveniences, but none of the clutter. We have no neighbors and at night it is perfectly peaceful. We’ve only been here two days and I already feel like we’ve stayed a week. Living in a rustic setting has made me nostalgic for the past.
Tonight I made a fire on the cabin porch and shared a bottle of wine with Yoko as the sun was setting. I was recalling the days as a kid when we chased fireflies, toasted marshmallows on an open fire, and lay in the grass to watch the night sky for shooting stars. We had no worries and life was simple.
I don’t often think about the past and what life was like when I was a child, but the uncertainty and complexity of the modern world has me yearning for those “good ole days”.
Our trip to Blue Ridge this weekend happily coincided not only with Mother’s Day, but Yoko and my 29th Wedding Anniversary and last night we watched a movie about divorce aptly called “It’s Complicated.” But really, it’s simple. Stay married!
Yoko and I are making travel plans for this summer. She has to return to Japan to attend her mother’s seven year memorial service in August. It’s customary in Japan to remember loved ones who have passed on the third and seventh anniversary of their death. So, Yoko and Jessie are going to Tokyo together at the end of July.
We decided that Yoko, Moe and I will drive to Blue Ridge, Georgia the week prior to her departure. We’ll spend a few days together in a mountain cabin. Then, at the end of the week I will drive Yoko to Atlanta so she can catch a plane to Tokyo.
I’m going to return to Blue Ridge by myself while Yoko is gone and try to finish a screenplay I started years ago. A few weeks of uninterrupted effort is all I need to finally finish the job.
We decided to make a dry run and fly to Blue Ridge this weekend to check out cabins and become familiar with the place. When we return in the summer we’ll take the car, but for this short weekend trip we decided to fly.
I have to say I am glad I don’t travel by air as much as I once did. I can’t stand the hassle and intrusion of airport security, the mobs of people, the delays and stress of making connections, the screaming babies who are invariably seated near you, and the airlines’ consistently poor service. On this latest flight the “meal service” offered was a bag of salted peanuts. Yippee.
Lately I have become more acutely aware that our national life is changing and not for the better. Every day I wake up and things seem worse than they were before. Nothing is as it was and everything is more complex. Sometimes I wonder if simplifying and getting back to basics wouldn’t be better.
In Blue Ridge today there was a “classic car” show on Main Street. Most of the cars being shown were beautifully restored models from the 50’s and 60’s. I could look at the gleaming, chrome-plated engines and actually see how everything fit together and worked. I can’t say that if I look under the hood of a car today I could really tell what’s what.
The log cabin we are staying in has all the modern conveniences, but none of the clutter. We have no neighbors and at night it is perfectly peaceful. We’ve only been here two days and I already feel like we’ve stayed a week. Living in a rustic setting has made me nostalgic for the past.
Tonight I made a fire on the cabin porch and shared a bottle of wine with Yoko as the sun was setting. I was recalling the days as a kid when we chased fireflies, toasted marshmallows on an open fire, and lay in the grass to watch the night sky for shooting stars. We had no worries and life was simple.
I don’t often think about the past and what life was like when I was a child, but the uncertainty and complexity of the modern world has me yearning for those “good ole days”.
Our trip to Blue Ridge this weekend happily coincided not only with Mother’s Day, but Yoko and my 29th Wedding Anniversary and last night we watched a movie about divorce aptly called “It’s Complicated.” But really, it’s simple. Stay married!
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
The Amazing Discoveries of Royal Rife
There are all sorts of treatments for cancer, but to date a “cancer cure” has not been found – or so I thought. In fact, we can’t even agree on the cause or causes of cancer. One thing is for sure: treating cancer – whatever the cause -- is big business and growing.
For some time now I have been reading about the history of cancer research, including Dr. Devra Davis’ book “The Secret History of the War on Cancer” which focuses on environmental toxins and carcinogens. The theme of this book is that economic interests – not science – drives public health policy. The tobacco industry’s 30 year campaign to undermine evidence linking cigarettes to lung cancer is but one example Davis cites. If cell phones were definitively proven to lead to brain tumors, do you think the cell phone industry would act any differently than the tobacco companies did?
Another book, “Toxic Treatments: Surviving the Cancer Wars” by Penelope Williams, speaks to how offshore alternative treatments, offered in places like Bermuda and Mexico and often condemned as being scams operated by medical quacks, have, in fact, been started by dedicated cancer researchers who were formerly employed at some of the world’s most prestigious cancer research centers. No doubt there are some medical quacks selling false hope to cancer patients. But surely some alternative treatments have merit, even if the science for why something works is not understood. Being unorthodox and working outside established medical dogma, however, looks to be a lousy career choice for cancer researchers.
One of my friends, who use to work as a consultant to the National Cancer Institute, explained to me how difficult it is to get cancer research funded unless the proposed research falls within the realm of known science and is already “practically proven.”
I think by now anyone interested in cancer research has heard of John Kanzius, a Cape Coral cancer patient who was experimenting with radio waves and nano particles to treat cancers of all sorts. Kanzius was featured on CBS’s 60 Minutes in 2008 as the unlikely, self-taught medical-industry-outsider who just may have found a cure for cancer. The basic idea Kanzius came up with is to inject patients with metallic nano particles that attach to cancer cells and then heat the particles and destroy the cells using harmless radio waves. It’s a breakthrough idea, but it is not exactly new.
Dr. Royal Rife acclaimed by his biographer as “one of the greatest scientific geniuses of the 20th century” was a respected microbiologist and physicist. Rife began researching a cure for cancer in 1920. By 1932 he had isolated a virus found in every form of cancer, called the BX virus, and learned how to destroy it with electromagnetic (radio) frequency waves (the way sound waves can destroy glass.)
Rife worked with the most respected researchers in America in that era. In 1934, a Special Research Committee at University of Southern California oversaw the laboratory research and cancer clinic that treated 16 terminally ill patients with Rife’s frequency machine. All 16 patients in the famous 1934 clinic were “cured” of their cancer within months.
Follow-up clinics run by USC and independent physicians between 1935 and 1937 confirmed the results. So why has no one heard of Royal Rife and his fantastic cancer cure? In the 1987 book called “The Rife Report” biographer, Barry Lynes, assigns primary blame to Morris Fishbein, alleged to be a shakedown artist who headed the all powerful American Medical Association from the mid-1920s until 1949.
When Fishbein’s overtures to buy Rife’s technology were turned away, Lynes alleges Fishbein used his position to shut down Rife’s company and discredit his reputation and research. It’s a complex tale well worth reading.
For some time now I have been reading about the history of cancer research, including Dr. Devra Davis’ book “The Secret History of the War on Cancer” which focuses on environmental toxins and carcinogens. The theme of this book is that economic interests – not science – drives public health policy. The tobacco industry’s 30 year campaign to undermine evidence linking cigarettes to lung cancer is but one example Davis cites. If cell phones were definitively proven to lead to brain tumors, do you think the cell phone industry would act any differently than the tobacco companies did?
Another book, “Toxic Treatments: Surviving the Cancer Wars” by Penelope Williams, speaks to how offshore alternative treatments, offered in places like Bermuda and Mexico and often condemned as being scams operated by medical quacks, have, in fact, been started by dedicated cancer researchers who were formerly employed at some of the world’s most prestigious cancer research centers. No doubt there are some medical quacks selling false hope to cancer patients. But surely some alternative treatments have merit, even if the science for why something works is not understood. Being unorthodox and working outside established medical dogma, however, looks to be a lousy career choice for cancer researchers.
One of my friends, who use to work as a consultant to the National Cancer Institute, explained to me how difficult it is to get cancer research funded unless the proposed research falls within the realm of known science and is already “practically proven.”
I think by now anyone interested in cancer research has heard of John Kanzius, a Cape Coral cancer patient who was experimenting with radio waves and nano particles to treat cancers of all sorts. Kanzius was featured on CBS’s 60 Minutes in 2008 as the unlikely, self-taught medical-industry-outsider who just may have found a cure for cancer. The basic idea Kanzius came up with is to inject patients with metallic nano particles that attach to cancer cells and then heat the particles and destroy the cells using harmless radio waves. It’s a breakthrough idea, but it is not exactly new.
Dr. Royal Rife acclaimed by his biographer as “one of the greatest scientific geniuses of the 20th century” was a respected microbiologist and physicist. Rife began researching a cure for cancer in 1920. By 1932 he had isolated a virus found in every form of cancer, called the BX virus, and learned how to destroy it with electromagnetic (radio) frequency waves (the way sound waves can destroy glass.)
Rife worked with the most respected researchers in America in that era. In 1934, a Special Research Committee at University of Southern California oversaw the laboratory research and cancer clinic that treated 16 terminally ill patients with Rife’s frequency machine. All 16 patients in the famous 1934 clinic were “cured” of their cancer within months.
Follow-up clinics run by USC and independent physicians between 1935 and 1937 confirmed the results. So why has no one heard of Royal Rife and his fantastic cancer cure? In the 1987 book called “The Rife Report” biographer, Barry Lynes, assigns primary blame to Morris Fishbein, alleged to be a shakedown artist who headed the all powerful American Medical Association from the mid-1920s until 1949.
When Fishbein’s overtures to buy Rife’s technology were turned away, Lynes alleges Fishbein used his position to shut down Rife’s company and discredit his reputation and research. It’s a complex tale well worth reading.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
A Dose of Reality
I’m participating in a double-blind, Stage III study of a lung cancer vaccine. Every six weeks I drive just over 2 hours from Punta Gorda to New Port Richey to receive my injections. (Because it’s a blind study, I don’t know if I am getting the experimental drug or sugar water.) On my visit this past Monday I saw my study doctor, who exclaimed, “This drug must be working!” I said to the physician, “How can you know that? This is a double blind study. Neither you nor I know if I am getting the real deal or a placebo.”
The study doctor admitted that he doesn’t know for sure. But, he explained, it’s highly unusual for someone to do as well as I appear to be doing, given my diagnosis. He naturally concluded that it must be the trial drug.
Then I asked him: “In your 30 year career as an oncologist, how many inoperable Stage IIIA lung cancer patients have you seen survive 5 years or more?” His answer was depressing. “Only one…and that woman survived just over five years after undergoing chemo nearly the entire time.”
The conversation was a real downer for me. I should be encouraged by the fact I am doing so well relative to most lung cancer patients. But his comment about late stage lung cancer’s low survival rate shocked me back into the reality of my diagnosis. Despite my healthy appearance, I face a low probability of being a long term survivor. The drug I am taking has been shown in previous trials to help extend life for one to three years, but it is not a cure. Eventually, the cancer returns. That reality hit me this week like a ton of bricks.
Until Monday I was thinking of myself as “cured”. In fact, a few weeks ago I ordered a vanity license plate for my car that reads “I m Cured”. Now I hope I haven’t jinxed myself! My next CT/PET scan is in a few weeks. We’ll see what the results bring.
This past December I elected to have my infusion port removed. It was an act of faith that I will not need more chemotherapy in the foreseeable future. It gave me a psychological lift to have that lump of metal out of my chest. I felt restored to my former self and more optimistic about the future.
The only other reminders that I have lung cancer have been my cloudy eyesight and the neuropathy in my feet and hands. I had my eyes checked a year ago and was shocked to learn that I have developed cataracts in both eyes. I did not know it at the time I was having treatments, but apparently the steroids used in chemotherapy can cause cataracts.
I noticed that my eyesight has gotten worse. I can hit a golf ball but I can’t see it land. It’s hard for me to read the computer screen at work and at night the glare of on-coming headlights has made it harder to see the road.
My vision has deteriorated to the point where I decided I need to do something about it. After consulting with my colleague from the community clinic, Dr. David Klein, I decided to go ahead with cataract surgery and take care of this problem now rather than wait. Were I to have a recurrence of cancer that requires chemotherapy, corrective eye surgery would most definitely be off the table.
On Thursday I went into the hospital to have the cataract in my right eye removed and an artificial lens implanted. I stayed home Friday to recover. That’s three out of five days of work missed this week for health related issues. Worst of all, golf is out of the question this weekend.
I guess I should be grateful I’m doing so well!
The study doctor admitted that he doesn’t know for sure. But, he explained, it’s highly unusual for someone to do as well as I appear to be doing, given my diagnosis. He naturally concluded that it must be the trial drug.
Then I asked him: “In your 30 year career as an oncologist, how many inoperable Stage IIIA lung cancer patients have you seen survive 5 years or more?” His answer was depressing. “Only one…and that woman survived just over five years after undergoing chemo nearly the entire time.”
The conversation was a real downer for me. I should be encouraged by the fact I am doing so well relative to most lung cancer patients. But his comment about late stage lung cancer’s low survival rate shocked me back into the reality of my diagnosis. Despite my healthy appearance, I face a low probability of being a long term survivor. The drug I am taking has been shown in previous trials to help extend life for one to three years, but it is not a cure. Eventually, the cancer returns. That reality hit me this week like a ton of bricks.
Until Monday I was thinking of myself as “cured”. In fact, a few weeks ago I ordered a vanity license plate for my car that reads “I m Cured”. Now I hope I haven’t jinxed myself! My next CT/PET scan is in a few weeks. We’ll see what the results bring.
This past December I elected to have my infusion port removed. It was an act of faith that I will not need more chemotherapy in the foreseeable future. It gave me a psychological lift to have that lump of metal out of my chest. I felt restored to my former self and more optimistic about the future.
The only other reminders that I have lung cancer have been my cloudy eyesight and the neuropathy in my feet and hands. I had my eyes checked a year ago and was shocked to learn that I have developed cataracts in both eyes. I did not know it at the time I was having treatments, but apparently the steroids used in chemotherapy can cause cataracts.
I noticed that my eyesight has gotten worse. I can hit a golf ball but I can’t see it land. It’s hard for me to read the computer screen at work and at night the glare of on-coming headlights has made it harder to see the road.
My vision has deteriorated to the point where I decided I need to do something about it. After consulting with my colleague from the community clinic, Dr. David Klein, I decided to go ahead with cataract surgery and take care of this problem now rather than wait. Were I to have a recurrence of cancer that requires chemotherapy, corrective eye surgery would most definitely be off the table.
On Thursday I went into the hospital to have the cataract in my right eye removed and an artificial lens implanted. I stayed home Friday to recover. That’s three out of five days of work missed this week for health related issues. Worst of all, golf is out of the question this weekend.
I guess I should be grateful I’m doing so well!
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Visit to the Panhandle
After Dance Marathon on Valentine’s Day Yoko and I planned to head north to Blue Ridge, Georgia to check out mountain cabins for the summer months. The weekend turned out to be unusually cold. The forecast for Georgia was snow and ice in the mountains where we were headed. In fact, travel conditions were so bad our real estate agent called to advise us NOT to come! Waiving me off the trip was the right thing to do and, by doing that, the agent has earned my respect and loyalty.
We had planned to leave Tallahassee for Georgia Sunday afternoon but now, suddenly, we had no place to go. We had never seen any of the Florida panhandle, so this was a good opportunity to explore. We decided to go west as far as Destin and Ft Walton Beach area and then take two days to drive home along the coast, checking on local real estate along the way.
We found a “four star” Hilton Hotel that looked to be quite nice for a very reasonable price. The off-season rate advertised on the internet was $109 per night. We figured we would not need reservations at this time of year anyway, so we left Tallahassee around 4 PM Sunday and made it to the Sandestin Hilton by 7 PM.
When we arrived there was no bellman or valet on duty to greet us and the lobby was deserted. I dropped Yoko off with the bags and self parked. When we got to the front desk, Olga, the receptionist, greeted us with a less than friendly demeanor. I asked if there were any rooms available. In a Slavic accent Olga said there were “a few rooms” at $169 per night plus parking. (Huh? Who does she think she’s kidding? I don’t think there were 10 cars in the parking lot I had just come from and not a sole was in sight.)
I explained to Olga that I had checked the internet before selecting this hotel and the partial ocean view room rate advertised was $109 per night. Olga explained that that was the internet reservation rate, not the walk-in rate. “Oh,” I said, “Maybe I should just go back to my car and make a reservation on my laptop at the $109.00 rate?” At that point, Olga relented and gave us a very nice room for $109.00, but then informed us that there was a $10 charge for parking and $20 for valet parking. “Hmmm…well, it’s too late for the valet parking”, I said. “Is there someplace I can park where I do not get charged?” (Of course, I already knew the answer was “no.”) Hilton has now earned my enmity along with the airlines that do a head fake with “low fares” and then charge for baggage and incidentals.
On Monday morning we checked out and drove along Route 98, which follows the panhandle coast. At times it seemed like we were the only car on the road. We stopped and visited a few of the newer developments along Emerald Coast Parkway, including an upscale development called Blue Mountain Beach, another one called Watermark, and St Georges Island. Everywhere we went we found a plethora of “for sale” and “foreclosure” signs, exceedingly high prices, and no customers or tourists in sight. My take was that prices will need to be significantly lower before any serious buyers emerge.
We arrived in Perry, Florida at 7 PM exhausted and hungry and needing to find a clean place to stay. Luckily, we came across a sparkling new Holiday Inn Express. The smiling young desk clerk said we could have any room for $99 a night. That included a buffet breakfast and a newspaper in the morning. Then, without our asking, the coup de grace – she offered to give us a $15 discount to $84 if we are members of AARP! Sold!
Anger at Government Indifference
Back in November I wrote an online post about how lung cancer patients need to fight the stigma of lung cancer. It is a topic that really hit home with lung cancer patients and I have ignited a little firestorm of discussion and debate on the topic. Lung cancer patients are angry with the government’s indifference.
My original posting really had everything to do with discussing how to fight the stigma of lung cancer and nothing to do with the negative health effects of smoking. Smoking is bad for you. There is no debate any longer and that was not the point of my posting. Yet it seems whenever I talk about lung cancer I end up in a discussion about smoking. It’s infuriating because that is exactly my point! It’s not about smoking. It’s about lung cancer – how to detect it, treat it and prevent it!
Remember the 1980's and the AIDS movement? I think that lung cancer has the same kind of stigma attached to it. There was little funding for AIDS research in the early 1980’s because AIDS was thought to be caused by the “lifestyle” of gays and drug addicts. In the same way, lung cancer today has only a small amount of research funding because the disease is thought to be a self-inflicted “lifestyle” disease caused by smoking. AIDS got more attention and research dollars when activists marched on Washington and people began to realize that "innocents" (i.e. mothers and newborns) were also getting the disease.
I think lung cancer patients need to be pointing out two things: not only do many innocent non-smokers develop lung cancer, but people who QUIT smoking, even decades ago and live a healthy lifestyle today, can and do frequently develop lung cancer. More dollars devoted to research into lung cancer early detection could save 70,000 lives a YEAR, according to an actuarial study released on February 16th by Lung Cancer Alliance. If nothing else, we should be fighting to give FUTURE lung cancer patients a better chance of surviving the disease. There are 70 million former smokers at risk in this country and many more millions who were or are exposed to second hand smoke (and other lung cancer causing agents). They need to be given a chance. They shouldn't just be written off with our "oh well, deserves you right" attitude. My interest is to find a way to increase public understanding for the critical need for lung cancer research. We need to fight the stigma of lung cancer with facts.
The legal sale of cigarettes continues to this day despite the fact that nicotine is KNOWN to create a habit forming addiction that can kill or harm you just as surely as lead-based paint or asbestos. Where is the government in regulating THIS drug and keeping it out of the hands of our children? Where is the Consumer Products Safety Commission? I am on a drug-trial for Stimuvax -- a lung cancer vaccine that could save or extend the lives of all of us struggling with lung cancer, but the law requires extensive trials and testing before allowing a new drug on the market. (I'd like to see the trials the Federal government did on cigarettes (and other carcinogens) before allowing them on the market!) Shouldn’t we we be giving a drug like Stimuvax to people at high risk of developing lung cancer? Don’t the tens of millions of people at risk of developing lung cancer deserve research into early detection or, better yet, potential "lung cancer preventatives" especially since it is not likely we will ever ban the sale of tobacco products?
In the next five years 800,000 people in this country will die from lung cancer before potential life saving drugs like Stimuvax are approved for use. What, on earth, is the FDA protecting us from?
My original posting really had everything to do with discussing how to fight the stigma of lung cancer and nothing to do with the negative health effects of smoking. Smoking is bad for you. There is no debate any longer and that was not the point of my posting. Yet it seems whenever I talk about lung cancer I end up in a discussion about smoking. It’s infuriating because that is exactly my point! It’s not about smoking. It’s about lung cancer – how to detect it, treat it and prevent it!
Remember the 1980's and the AIDS movement? I think that lung cancer has the same kind of stigma attached to it. There was little funding for AIDS research in the early 1980’s because AIDS was thought to be caused by the “lifestyle” of gays and drug addicts. In the same way, lung cancer today has only a small amount of research funding because the disease is thought to be a self-inflicted “lifestyle” disease caused by smoking. AIDS got more attention and research dollars when activists marched on Washington and people began to realize that "innocents" (i.e. mothers and newborns) were also getting the disease.
I think lung cancer patients need to be pointing out two things: not only do many innocent non-smokers develop lung cancer, but people who QUIT smoking, even decades ago and live a healthy lifestyle today, can and do frequently develop lung cancer. More dollars devoted to research into lung cancer early detection could save 70,000 lives a YEAR, according to an actuarial study released on February 16th by Lung Cancer Alliance. If nothing else, we should be fighting to give FUTURE lung cancer patients a better chance of surviving the disease. There are 70 million former smokers at risk in this country and many more millions who were or are exposed to second hand smoke (and other lung cancer causing agents). They need to be given a chance. They shouldn't just be written off with our "oh well, deserves you right" attitude. My interest is to find a way to increase public understanding for the critical need for lung cancer research. We need to fight the stigma of lung cancer with facts.
The legal sale of cigarettes continues to this day despite the fact that nicotine is KNOWN to create a habit forming addiction that can kill or harm you just as surely as lead-based paint or asbestos. Where is the government in regulating THIS drug and keeping it out of the hands of our children? Where is the Consumer Products Safety Commission? I am on a drug-trial for Stimuvax -- a lung cancer vaccine that could save or extend the lives of all of us struggling with lung cancer, but the law requires extensive trials and testing before allowing a new drug on the market. (I'd like to see the trials the Federal government did on cigarettes (and other carcinogens) before allowing them on the market!) Shouldn’t we we be giving a drug like Stimuvax to people at high risk of developing lung cancer? Don’t the tens of millions of people at risk of developing lung cancer deserve research into early detection or, better yet, potential "lung cancer preventatives" especially since it is not likely we will ever ban the sale of tobacco products?
In the next five years 800,000 people in this country will die from lung cancer before potential life saving drugs like Stimuvax are approved for use. What, on earth, is the FDA protecting us from?
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Feeling the Love on Valentines Day
Yoko and I took off for Tallahassee on Valentine’s Day weekend to see our daughter Jessica at Florida State. Jessie is deeply involved with Dance Marathon, which is a 40 hour danceathon to raise money for The Children’s Miracle Network (CMN). Last year FSU’s Dance Marathon donated over $380,000 in proceeds to Shands Children Hospital in Gainesville, a CMN supported facility.
Jessie has volunteered to help with the FSU event for the past three years. She serves on the Dance Marathon organizing committee and is responsible for media production, including creating and editing all the music, video and still photography used prior to, during and after the event. Dance Marathon has become the centerpiece of her college career. In fact, because of Dance Marathon, Jessie has decided to pursue event management as a career.
My alma mater, Penn State, is the school that came up with the idea of a Dance Marathon fundraiser. It was started in 1973 by the Penn State’s Inter-fraternity Council. That year just $2000 was raised by 39 couples dancing for 30 hours straight. Penn State donated the money it raised to the Butler County Association of Retarded Citizens.
In 1977, Dance Marathon was changed to a 48-hour event and became an annual benefit for the Four Diamonds Fund at Penn State’s Hershey Medical Center. In 1990, Indiana University began their own Dance Marathon to raise funds for the Ryan White Infectious Disease Center at Riley Hospital for Children.
In 1995, the Children’s Miracle Network developed a fundraising program inspired by these early dance marathons. The first year of the program, four schools participated and raised a total of $142,000. Six more schools, including FSU, were added to the program the following year, raising $300,000. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Today, across the nation, over 80 schools hold Dance Marathons to raise money for Children’s Miracle Network. The FSU Dance Marathon alone has raised $2.2 million since 1996. Over $40 million has been raised since 1996. What a great story!
Yoko and I decided this year would be a good time to check out what Jessie has been up to all this time, so we made plans to go up on Valentine’s Day weekend to witness the event for ourselves. After that we were going to continue on to Blue Ridge, Georgia for a romantic weekend and look for a summer cabin.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when we showed up at the Leon Civic Center to witness the opening of Dance Marathon. Throbbing music with a heavy drumbeat was blaring as we made our way into the heavily decorated hall where all the dancing was about to begin. In years gone by the FSU marathon was one session that continued for 36 hours straight. This year to increase participation (and the amount of money raised) the kids decided to do two sessions of 20 hours each with a three hour break in between. (600 kids participate in each session.) We got there just at the kids were entering the hall for the second session.
The excitement in the hall was tangible as the dancers got ready to stand and dance for 20 hours straight. The kickoff started with a 34 minute music video countdown, largely edited by my daughter. Then at exactly 7 PM the marathon officially begins. The organizing committee starts things off with a high energy nine minute line dance that all 1200 dancers will learn before the end of the night. (The line dance happens at the top of each hour for the entire 20 hours.
You could feel the love of the student dancers literally giving of themselves on Valentine’s Day. The marathon, which ended at 3 PM on Sunday raised over $ 450,000. Yoko and I could not be more proud of the part Jessie played.
Jessie has volunteered to help with the FSU event for the past three years. She serves on the Dance Marathon organizing committee and is responsible for media production, including creating and editing all the music, video and still photography used prior to, during and after the event. Dance Marathon has become the centerpiece of her college career. In fact, because of Dance Marathon, Jessie has decided to pursue event management as a career.
My alma mater, Penn State, is the school that came up with the idea of a Dance Marathon fundraiser. It was started in 1973 by the Penn State’s Inter-fraternity Council. That year just $2000 was raised by 39 couples dancing for 30 hours straight. Penn State donated the money it raised to the Butler County Association of Retarded Citizens.
In 1977, Dance Marathon was changed to a 48-hour event and became an annual benefit for the Four Diamonds Fund at Penn State’s Hershey Medical Center. In 1990, Indiana University began their own Dance Marathon to raise funds for the Ryan White Infectious Disease Center at Riley Hospital for Children.
In 1995, the Children’s Miracle Network developed a fundraising program inspired by these early dance marathons. The first year of the program, four schools participated and raised a total of $142,000. Six more schools, including FSU, were added to the program the following year, raising $300,000. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Today, across the nation, over 80 schools hold Dance Marathons to raise money for Children’s Miracle Network. The FSU Dance Marathon alone has raised $2.2 million since 1996. Over $40 million has been raised since 1996. What a great story!
Yoko and I decided this year would be a good time to check out what Jessie has been up to all this time, so we made plans to go up on Valentine’s Day weekend to witness the event for ourselves. After that we were going to continue on to Blue Ridge, Georgia for a romantic weekend and look for a summer cabin.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when we showed up at the Leon Civic Center to witness the opening of Dance Marathon. Throbbing music with a heavy drumbeat was blaring as we made our way into the heavily decorated hall where all the dancing was about to begin. In years gone by the FSU marathon was one session that continued for 36 hours straight. This year to increase participation (and the amount of money raised) the kids decided to do two sessions of 20 hours each with a three hour break in between. (600 kids participate in each session.) We got there just at the kids were entering the hall for the second session.
The excitement in the hall was tangible as the dancers got ready to stand and dance for 20 hours straight. The kickoff started with a 34 minute music video countdown, largely edited by my daughter. Then at exactly 7 PM the marathon officially begins. The organizing committee starts things off with a high energy nine minute line dance that all 1200 dancers will learn before the end of the night. (The line dance happens at the top of each hour for the entire 20 hours.
You could feel the love of the student dancers literally giving of themselves on Valentine’s Day. The marathon, which ended at 3 PM on Sunday raised over $ 450,000. Yoko and I could not be more proud of the part Jessie played.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
"We Have a Dream" Team
A few months ago I was asked if I would be the honorary chair of the Port Charlotte Relay for Life event, which is to take place May 1st – 2nd at Port Charlotte High School. The proceeds from the event benefit our local American Cancer Society and the programs they have to provide education and support for cancer patients here in Charlotte County. I’ve known about Relay for Life for many years, but I’ve never been involved. I didn’t know what exactly happens at Relay or how the event raises money. Nevertheless, I was honored to be asked and I agreed to help. Now I’m learning about what it is and how it works. It is a pretty impressive fundraiser with enthusiastic leadership.
This year the Port Charlotte Relay for Life theme is “Hopestock” -- a sixties “Woodstock” reference. The organizers are hoping to have 55 teams participate and raise at least $140,000. I decided that if I am going to be involved, I’m going to be “all in” in raising awareness and money.
The first thing I did was ask my colleagues at work to help me form a team, to which they all readily agreed. They also agreed that there is no point in doing this if we aren’t going to give it our all. Game on!
The name our team selected is “We Have a Dream” Team – harking back to the 1960’s civil rights movement and Martin Luther King’s famous speech. Of course, our dream is that we finally make progress in the war on cancer, which, like the war in Vietnam, seems to have gone on and on with no end in sight. Our dream is to “stop the dying and end the war” by finding a cure for cancer.
There are six of us in our office and we are each charged with finding 10 team mates (friends and family), who will join us to walk the track May 1st and 2nd. I am hoping that by the end of this month the six of us can find 60 people to come out and join us. We are asking each person who joins our team to register online and commit to raising $200. That alone gets us to $12,000. We hope to raise another $3000 with small events in the coming months, starting with a Rummage Sale being planned for Feb 27th at my office. (If you would like to donate stuff to sell, contact me at tecappiello@gmail.com for details.)
There are lots of ways to contribute to Relay. You can sign up to create your own team or you can join our “We Have a Dream” team or another team online at www.relayforlife.org. (Look for our Port Charlotte event by searching by city.)
If you would like to help draw attention to the Relay for Life event, consider making a $25 donation to have a flock of pink flamingos planted in a friend’s or neighbor’s yard.
You can honor someone you know who is fighting cancer or has lost the battle by donating any amount for a Luminaria (candle bag) that lights the track the night of the event. If you’re a business, you might consider making a $115 donation for a Sunshine Sign that will line the track on event day.
Sadly, you don’t have to look hard to find someone you know – a friend, co-worker, relative -- who has been affected by cancer. Each year the American Cancer Society estimates the number of new cancer cases and deaths in the United States. In 2009, 1,479,350 new cancer cases and 562,340 deaths from cancer were projected to occur in the US. Fully one third of those deaths – 160,000 -- are from lung cancer. Progress is being made in reducing the incidence and mortality rates from cancer but progress can be accelerated if we support cancer prevention, early detection and treatment.
Demonstrate your support with the “We Have a Dream” Port Charlotte Relay for Life team!
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Handling Bad News
Let’s face it. This has not been a great ten years. The internet bubble burst in 2000. Accounting scandals ended in the bankruptcy of Enron and WorldCom and the destruction of my former employer, Arthur Andersen. We endured 9/11 and the collapse of the World Trade Center in 2001, the onset of war in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2002. The year 2004 brought hurricanes to Florida and a tidal wave that devastated Indonesia and Thailand. Katrina and the disaster in New Orleans followed in 2005.
Today we are experiencing the aftermath of falling real estate values, the Madoff swindle, and the near collapse of our financial markets. We are dealing with a severe recession, high unemployment and a devastating disaster in Haiti. When will the bad news end?
When things go wrong it’s important to look for the silver lining. As bad as things are, life can always be worse. Ask any Haitian.
Erma Bombeck wrote a book called, “If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What am I Doing in the Pits?” Well, guess it depends on how you look at things. Sometimes being in the pits is a plus! I became a stock broker in 1999 and was only starting to build my book of business when the tech bubble ended and stock prices collapsed. I didn’t have a lot of clients that got hurt because I didn’t have a lot of clients! The silver lining for me was that there were a lot of unhappy investors out there. That fact and a positive outlook provided me with the opportunity to gain a foothold in the market as a financial advisor. While established brokers were avoiding calls from clients, I was knocking on the door. You could say starting my career in a down market was kind of a lucky break.
Cancer patients deal with bad news and disappointment on a regular basis. It comes with the territory. The first bad news is the diagnosis itself. Then you learn if it is operable or not. Is it in the lymph nodes? Has it spread? Is there more than one tumor? Are the drug treatments working? Can you be cured? Will you still be able to work? Will your insurance pay for all the treatments you need? The list goes on and on. Where’s cancer’s silver lining? I have to say that cancer has helped me appreciate my family and friends and the blessings I have. I am much more keenly aware of my mortality and the limited time I have on earth. I have finally gotten my priorities straight and am trying to accomplish all that I would hope to do with my life. I think cancer has made me a better person and has improved the quality of my life.
I’ve been reading about the life of someone named David Welch, who, at the age of 38, was diagnosed with brain cancer. David passed away a year ago, but he created a website called 38Lemon (named after the age he was diagnosed with a tumor the size of a lemon). David’s journal is inspirational reading for anyone with cancer. He lived for 4 years 35 days from his date of diagnosis and wrote about his life and treatment nearly every day until the day he died. He was an accomplished musician, a successful entrepreneur, a writer and an artist. He had family and friends who loved him. He was courageous in facing his disease and passionate about not giving up on life. He is truly someone who knew how to turn lemons into lemonade.
Yoko and I have had our share of personal tragedy and heartache, but we have come though it all. I think we go through life, especially when we are young, pretending nothing bad can happen. When it does, we are devastated. Maybe we should just expect bad news – like biting into a cherry with a pit – and just be happy we don’t break a tooth. Focus on the fact that life is sweet and savor the moment.
Today we are experiencing the aftermath of falling real estate values, the Madoff swindle, and the near collapse of our financial markets. We are dealing with a severe recession, high unemployment and a devastating disaster in Haiti. When will the bad news end?
When things go wrong it’s important to look for the silver lining. As bad as things are, life can always be worse. Ask any Haitian.
Erma Bombeck wrote a book called, “If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What am I Doing in the Pits?” Well, guess it depends on how you look at things. Sometimes being in the pits is a plus! I became a stock broker in 1999 and was only starting to build my book of business when the tech bubble ended and stock prices collapsed. I didn’t have a lot of clients that got hurt because I didn’t have a lot of clients! The silver lining for me was that there were a lot of unhappy investors out there. That fact and a positive outlook provided me with the opportunity to gain a foothold in the market as a financial advisor. While established brokers were avoiding calls from clients, I was knocking on the door. You could say starting my career in a down market was kind of a lucky break.
Cancer patients deal with bad news and disappointment on a regular basis. It comes with the territory. The first bad news is the diagnosis itself. Then you learn if it is operable or not. Is it in the lymph nodes? Has it spread? Is there more than one tumor? Are the drug treatments working? Can you be cured? Will you still be able to work? Will your insurance pay for all the treatments you need? The list goes on and on. Where’s cancer’s silver lining? I have to say that cancer has helped me appreciate my family and friends and the blessings I have. I am much more keenly aware of my mortality and the limited time I have on earth. I have finally gotten my priorities straight and am trying to accomplish all that I would hope to do with my life. I think cancer has made me a better person and has improved the quality of my life.
I’ve been reading about the life of someone named David Welch, who, at the age of 38, was diagnosed with brain cancer. David passed away a year ago, but he created a website called 38Lemon (named after the age he was diagnosed with a tumor the size of a lemon). David’s journal is inspirational reading for anyone with cancer. He lived for 4 years 35 days from his date of diagnosis and wrote about his life and treatment nearly every day until the day he died. He was an accomplished musician, a successful entrepreneur, a writer and an artist. He had family and friends who loved him. He was courageous in facing his disease and passionate about not giving up on life. He is truly someone who knew how to turn lemons into lemonade.
Yoko and I have had our share of personal tragedy and heartache, but we have come though it all. I think we go through life, especially when we are young, pretending nothing bad can happen. When it does, we are devastated. Maybe we should just expect bad news – like biting into a cherry with a pit – and just be happy we don’t break a tooth. Focus on the fact that life is sweet and savor the moment.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Changing Culture
Yoko and I were watching the AFC and NFC Championship games on Sunday. She has really learned to enjoy American football and gets as excited watching a game as anyone I know. She has also become pretty knowledgeable about the rules of the game and the players. For example, she knows Percy Harvin plays for Minnesota and use to be a Florida Gator (so she likes Minnesota). Her favorite team is Boise State. (She fell in love with them after their unbelievable victory over Oklahoma at the Fiesta Bowl in 2007.) Yoko generally likes college football better than professional football. I think her preference for college football has something to do with the purity of amateur athletics and the fun and raw emotion displayed by young and enthusiastic fans. Football is a part of American culture that Yoko admires.
Baseball is the Japanese national pastime – but Japanese baseball is different from what we play here in America. There is a very funny book call “The Chrysanthemum and the Bat”, written by a friend of mine, Robert Whiting, which describes the subtle cultural differences in how baseball is practiced and played in Japan. The book’s title is a humorous allusion to Ruth Benedict’s classic, “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword”, a serious anthropological study of Japanese culture commissioned by the US Government during the Second World War. The theme of Whiting’s book is that Japanese culture imbues and colors every aspect of life in Japan, including something as mundane as baseball.
I thought about this tonight only because I am watching football with my Japanese wife, who is upset – not at the violence of American football -- but at the violence and meanness of American culture in general.
Yoko and I talk about “American culture verses Japanese culture” on a regular basis. The discussion is usually triggered by something I bring home from the store (unhealthy snacks), something on television (Viagra commercials during family viewing hours or personal injury attorneys advertising for victims), or something that she observes in my interactions with other people. (I’m frequently accused by my wife of having done or said something that is ill mannered, impolite, or inconsiderate.)
What triggered tonight’s discussion was a new Walmart commercial aired during the football games. A dad, dressed as a clown, jumps into a room where children are attending a birthday party and stabs his foot on a child’s toy. He screams at the top of his lungs and scares the kids away, ruining the party. Yoko understands that this is intended to be humorous, but she doesn’t think it is funny. She thinks it is rather violent and unappealing. I can’t disagree.
Yoko objects to “reality” TV shows, like Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice,” that pit people against one another and challenges contestants to disparage and humiliate each other. Where is the human kindness and Christian values of love and compassion we espouse? She hates the MTV show “Punked”, which she sees as “mean” spirited and has none of the fun or innocence of Alan Funt’s “Candid Camera” or America’s Funniest Home Videos, which she likes. Japanese love slapstick and other forms of humor, but most often Japanese humor is self deprecating. Jokes are seldom directed at someone else.
I’ve been reading a book by the brilliant Charles Munger, Warren Buffett’s acclaimed business partner, called “On Success.” Munger writes about the psychology of human misjudgment and addresses the issue of excessive self-regard tendency. (For example, 90% of Swedish drivers judge themselves to be above average.) Yoko believes that Americans suffer from high self-regard and self-centeredness. That might be true for the Japanese as well. I agree with a lot of what Yoko thinks about American culture, but I sometimes wonder if she realizes she is seeing American culture through her own cultural filter.
Munger writes that “Man’s excess self regard typically makes him prefer people like himself.” Munger concludes that we need to be objective in making assessments about self, family, friends and property to avoid the folly of high self regard. It’s a good lesson for all of us to learn.
Baseball is the Japanese national pastime – but Japanese baseball is different from what we play here in America. There is a very funny book call “The Chrysanthemum and the Bat”, written by a friend of mine, Robert Whiting, which describes the subtle cultural differences in how baseball is practiced and played in Japan. The book’s title is a humorous allusion to Ruth Benedict’s classic, “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword”, a serious anthropological study of Japanese culture commissioned by the US Government during the Second World War. The theme of Whiting’s book is that Japanese culture imbues and colors every aspect of life in Japan, including something as mundane as baseball.
I thought about this tonight only because I am watching football with my Japanese wife, who is upset – not at the violence of American football -- but at the violence and meanness of American culture in general.
Yoko and I talk about “American culture verses Japanese culture” on a regular basis. The discussion is usually triggered by something I bring home from the store (unhealthy snacks), something on television (Viagra commercials during family viewing hours or personal injury attorneys advertising for victims), or something that she observes in my interactions with other people. (I’m frequently accused by my wife of having done or said something that is ill mannered, impolite, or inconsiderate.)
What triggered tonight’s discussion was a new Walmart commercial aired during the football games. A dad, dressed as a clown, jumps into a room where children are attending a birthday party and stabs his foot on a child’s toy. He screams at the top of his lungs and scares the kids away, ruining the party. Yoko understands that this is intended to be humorous, but she doesn’t think it is funny. She thinks it is rather violent and unappealing. I can’t disagree.
Yoko objects to “reality” TV shows, like Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice,” that pit people against one another and challenges contestants to disparage and humiliate each other. Where is the human kindness and Christian values of love and compassion we espouse? She hates the MTV show “Punked”, which she sees as “mean” spirited and has none of the fun or innocence of Alan Funt’s “Candid Camera” or America’s Funniest Home Videos, which she likes. Japanese love slapstick and other forms of humor, but most often Japanese humor is self deprecating. Jokes are seldom directed at someone else.
I’ve been reading a book by the brilliant Charles Munger, Warren Buffett’s acclaimed business partner, called “On Success.” Munger writes about the psychology of human misjudgment and addresses the issue of excessive self-regard tendency. (For example, 90% of Swedish drivers judge themselves to be above average.) Yoko believes that Americans suffer from high self-regard and self-centeredness. That might be true for the Japanese as well. I agree with a lot of what Yoko thinks about American culture, but I sometimes wonder if she realizes she is seeing American culture through her own cultural filter.
Munger writes that “Man’s excess self regard typically makes him prefer people like himself.” Munger concludes that we need to be objective in making assessments about self, family, friends and property to avoid the folly of high self regard. It’s a good lesson for all of us to learn.
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