FEAR OF ASSASSINATION RISING IN THE NATION. MAXIMUM PROTECTION OF CANDIDATES IS NECSSARY

It is good that the subject of assassinations has become part of public discourse in the United States during the current run for the presidency. It is a painful subject, but it does no good to sweep it under the carpet. Especially now!

The ugly remark, claimed to be a joke, made by former Governor Mike Huckabee at a recent meeting of the National Rifle Association when he referred to a loud noise from behind a curtain as the sound of Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama getting shot calls into question his fitness to ever serve in public office ever again, but it filled a very useful purpose.

Friends Express Fear

The fear that the first African American ever to win the nomination for President of one of our major political parties could get shot is growing. (At this writing, Barack Obama is the likely nominee, but not the certain nominee.) I’ve heard that fear from some of my friends—an unsolicited fear, I have to add—but it’s a fear that also has been growing in me as Barack Obama has edged ever closer to the Democratic Party’s nomination.

Senator Hillary Clinton’s recent remarks reminding the public that Robert Kennedy was assassinated in a California hotel in June 1968 as he was close to the Democratic nomination for President was viewed as a too shocking reminder by some, especially in light of the recent news about the health crisis of Senator Ted Kennedy, Robert Kennedy’s brother, but Senator Clinton should not have apologized.

Senator Clinton, Don’t Apologize

What Senator Clinton was saying was that she felt she should stay in the race for the Democratic Part nomination for President to the very end of the process because we can never tell what’s going to happen in the political arena in this county. Unfortunately, the sour note that Senator Clinton was sounding has been justified by historical fact on a number of occasions in this country. Gun violence has intruded its ugly self in our political affairs.

Having lived through the assassinations of the 1960s, I know that fear of assassination is no flight of fancy. I do fear that people are at work in this country today who would resort to the use of gun violence to achieve their ends, thus subverting the will of the people, just as such people were at work in the 1960s. Some might argue that the 1960s were a different period of time than the first decade of the 21st century, but are they really?

FBI

Look at what happened at Virginia Tech a year ago. Look at the Columbine tragedy and so many other examples of gun violence in our universities and schools. It is true that in the 1960s, the chief police agency in this country, namely the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was run by a racist who had been completely comprised by organized crime. That person was J. Edgar Hoover, in my opinion one of the worst human beings ever to have infested himself in an important administrative position in government in any country.

Because the nation had the misfortune to have had a thoroughly corrupted J. Edgar Hoover in a senior position in law enforcement in this country, the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy took place. Yes, I believe that, have long believed it, and do not see myself ever changing that opinion. The true perpetrators knew that a full and fair investigation of each of these events would not happen, that thus their roles in these events would never be found out. The bizarre coincidence of three assassinations in one decade, each supposedly unrelated to the other, is simply too pat to be believed. How can anyone of good sense ever subscribe to such an opinion?

Say These Things Now

By saying these things now it is my hope that we can alert those people whose job it is to protect our politicians and others in prominent positions that they must be ever vigilant in the days, months and years ahead. Violence must never be the way that decisions are made in this country ever again. A democracy where the gun is the maker of decisions is not a democracy that any person of decent values can and should want.

Having said that, I want to add my voice to that of Senator Diane Feinstein, Democrat of California. In the current struggle for the nomination of President of the Democratic Party, my first choice has been Hillary Clinton. My second choice has been Barack Obama. These have been my choices since the first televised debate was held, and over the course of the primaries I have given money to both of these candidates. I was strongly drawn to Barack’s message of change, but I felt that Hillary’s message that she was the most experienced to lead this nation was the most compelling.

Democrats Come Together

The time has now arrived for the Democratic Party to come together and give us the strongest possible ticket for November. Given Barack’s lead in delegates at this writing, I believe that that ticket would be Barack Obama for President and Hillary Clinton for Vice President. Let us have both these fine candidates together on the same ticket. Let us have the strength of both to give us the strongest possible combination in November.

For more examples of the writing of Stephen Alan Saft and for news on his upcoming publications, please see the comprehensive site http://www.sasaftwrites.com.

Copyright © 2008 by Stephen Alan Saft

GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS CASTS DOUBT ON ETHANOL AS AN ANSWER TO OIL DEPENDENCY. NUCLEAR POWERED CAR ANYONE?

Maybe giving over so much of this country’s corn production to the production of ethanol as a way to ease this country’s dependence on foreign oil wasn‘t such a good idea. That’s not just my conclusion, but that of a whole lot of other people who care about the global food crisis as well as the oil dependency and global warming issues.

Global food crisis? What global food crisis? An article in a recent issue of The Washington Post by Anthony Faola and entitled “The Economics of Hunger” describes it in brutal detail (National Weekly Edition, May 5-11, 2008, page 6 and following). “The food price shock now roiling world markets is destabilizing governments, igniting street riots and threatening to send a new wave of hunger rippling through the world’s poorest nations,” says Faola. “It is outpacing even the Soviet grain emergency of 1972-75 when world food prices rose 78 percent. By comparison, from the beginning of 2005 to early 2008, prices leapt 80 percent, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization.”

Oil Prices Main Culprit

The soaring price of oil is the principal cause of rising food prices, that is, the soaring price of transporting the food from the growers to the people who need it, Faola makes clear. The role of traders and speculators also figures prominently in the crisis, but the drive to use some of the corn production in the United States for ethanol to power our cars and other vehicles is another important ingredient in the crisis.

“This year,” says Faola, “at least a fifth and perhaps a quarter of the U.S. corn crop will be fed to ethanol plants. As food and fuel fuse, it has presented a boon to American farmers after years of stable prices. But it has also helped spark the broader food-price shock.”

Ethanol Crisis Factor

Faola then quotes from a professor at Iowa State University. “'If you didn’t have ethanol, you would not have the prices we have today,’ says Bruce Babcock, a professor of economics and the director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University. ‘It doesn’t mean it’s the sole driver. Prices would be higher than we saw earlier in the decade because world grain supplies are tighter now than earlier in the decade. But we’ve introduced a new demand into the market.’”

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m not a farmer, and so what I’m feeling right now as someone who also cares about the global warming issue is not disappointment at the news that ethanol does not appear to be the answer to the oil crisis. The combustion of ethanol releases just as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as the combustion of a hydrocarbon like oil in the form of gasoline or diesel fuel. Ethanol has never been a solution to the global warming problem.

That said, the oil crisis still cries out for a solution. It cries out for a solution not just because for each of us in this country it has made going to the gasoline station to fill up the car a painful experience and not just because it has already driven many middle class and even less well off families into crisis. It cries out for a solution because, as we have seen, it is having such a devastating effect on the world food situation. People are starving in various parts of the world because of the escalation in fuel prices.

More Railroads Needed

What can we do to ease the burden of escalating fuel costs? We can put more pressure on those in government and on the makers of our cars to accelerate the development of more fuel efficient vehicles. We can demand an acceleration in the availability of hybrids and all electric cars. We can push for a revival of the more energy efficient railroads as the long-haul domestic carrier of choice for our agricultural produce and our manufactured goods.

We can demand that instead of widening our interstate highways yet again, especially those known for their seemingly endless truck traffic, that our rail carriers be encouraged to lay new track beds beside them. There are too many fuel guzzling trucks on our highways. For long hauls, rail makes far more sense as the carrier of choice. Okay, lets support the rebirth of the railroad, but let’s not be naïve about it.

Rail Runs On Coal

Our existing railroads today are principally run on electricity, and most of that electricity comes from coal-fired generating plants. The coal industry has proposed the building of coal fired generating facilities that release no carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and thus do not contribute to global warming. I say let them build some of these zero carbon dioxide emission facilities to prove that the concept works and then lets start weaning ourselves off of a dependency on coal.

What, not even coal? How many mountains do we need to reduce to a wasteland of rubble to convince ourselves that coal mining is no longer an acceptable method to supply our energy needs? We’ve done enough to ruin this precious planet of ours in the name of meeting our energy needs. Now it’s time to stop. It’s time for us to start restoring as much as possible of what we’ve destroyed. Those who come after us speaking to us today are demanding that of us. Anyway in my mind they are. The destruction of our mountains must stop.

Wind Power Or Nuclear?

Where is this line of reasoning leading me? How will we meet the needs for energy in the future if we have neither oil and its relative natural gas and coal? In a posting several months ago I provided some answers when I directed attention to alternative sources of energy such as wind power. In that posting I also indicated my support for nuclear power.

Since that posting I have modified my thinking somewhat. I now no longer believe that alternative forms of energy such as wind power and solar can meet more than a small part of our needs. For example, it is starting to become clear that the building of wind farms is going to be a victim of the not-in-my-backyard syndrome. Those claiming to be the most passionate supporters of alternative sources of energy often become the most resistant opponents when they’re told that someone wants to put a wind farm in the middle of some landscape they hold sacred.

France Showing The Way

Nuclear power plants suffer from an even worse stigma. In fact, the resistance to nuclear power plants remains very high in this country because of safety concerns, whether well founded or not. On the other hand, nuclear plants are far more efficient producers of electric power than wind farms and other alternative forms will ever be. Yes, I do favor nuclear power, and I do see it as the answer, at least in the long run, to our current energy problems. In this respect, France is showing the way on the direction we must take in this country. And while I’m at it, let me take the issue several steps further.

I believe that someday someone will build and demonstrate a small nuclear powered engine suitable for running a bus, truck, airplane or car. This small engine will use its nuclear component solely to generate heat. The heat in turn will be directly converted to electricity to run an electric motor. Sound far fetched? In fact, the direct conversion of heat to electricity has already been demonstrated, but I must admit that a small, well protected nuclear heat generator such as one that could be safely installed in a car does not yet exist. Anyway to best of my knowledge it does not exist.

In future postings as well as in my other writings, I hope to have more to say about the concept of the small nuclear powered engine. For other examples of my writing, please see the website http://www.sasaftwrites.com.

Copyright © 2008 by Stephen Alan Saft

SWITCH TO STRONGER CHEMICALS GIVES HOPE THAT REMISSION WILL BE ACHIEVED SOON

A six-day hospital stay interrupted my writing schedule, and so I have a lot of catching up to do. On April 10, I made my appearance at Wake Forest University Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, North Carolina with wife Harriet at my side. I was there for a CAT scan to determine how well the treatment with the chemotherapy regimen called ICE had done in reducing the cancerous lymph node in my abdomen to zero, an important requirement in order to proceed with the intended bone marrow transplant.

Unfortunately, the night before I’d been hit with a stomach ache, possibly the result of indulging too much at a birthday celebration at a Winston-Salem restaurant. I’d let the staff at the Comprehensive Cancer Center know about the stomach ache when I arrived. My oncologist proceeded with the CAT scan, but she decided not to go ahead with any chemotherapy. Even though the pain had vanished at the time of the CAT scan, I was told to go home, but first she gave me the results of the CAT scan.

Lymph Node Shrinks

The lymph node was down in size by a third. ICE had been successful for me, but it wasn’t successful enough. Two-thirds of the little thing still remained. My oncologist let me know that when chemotherapy resumed she wanted to use an even stronger formulation, in fact, the strongest formulation currently available for lymphoma. And what about the stomach ache? Might the CAT scan reveal what had caused it?

It did. Anyway it gave large clues as to what might have caused it. The CAT scan revealed that the probable cause of the pain I had experienced the night before was a gallbladder flare up. I was to go home for a week and see if the gallbladder behaved itself or if the problems from it, not just pain, but also nausea or fever showed themselves. If I had any of these three, I was to come back to the hospital immediately and be admitted right away.

Gallbladder Diet

Harriet and I decided to keep the gallbladder in check with diet—a diet of substantially reduced saturated fats and also a diet rich in vegetables such as beets, celery, cucumbers, green beans and other items we found listed on very helpful websites. The gallbladder caused no trouble, and I was able to come back to the hospital pain, nausea and fever free at the newly scheduled time—that is, starting on April 17.

The session on April 17 started with an echo cardiogram to make sure my heart could take the new stronger regimen. Immediately after that, I had an ultrasound of the area of the abdomen where the gallbladder resides. A blood test came next, and then I met with Denise Levitan, my oncologist. Finally I was admitted for what would be my longest stay yet at WFU Baptist, six days of intensive chemotherapy.

Hello R-EPOCH

And what is this strongest formulation yet? It’s my old “friend” CHOP from 2002 or rather R-CHOP—“R” for Rituxan—with modifications to make it even more intensive. This latest version is known as EPOCH, but it might well be called R-EPOCH. Rituxan is still part of the mix as is Etoposide from ICE. From CHOP comes the wonderful sounding mix of Doxorubicin (also known as Adriamycin), Vincristine Sulfate (also known as Oncovin), and Cyclophosphamide (also known as Cytoxan).

Taken orally, rather than through transfusion, is the final and very important part of the group, the steroid Prednisone. It is the job of Prednisone to build you back up from the beating that the infused chemicals mete out on the body. I’m repeating myself from past postings, but remember that the chemicals of chemotherapy have the job of killing cancer rather than building up what might already be strong and healthy in the body. One problem is that they kill much more than that which needs killing.

Called An Ordeal

How did it go? These consecutive days of chemotherapy at the hospital—six in this case--can only be described as an ordeal. They are tough, and it would be inaccurate of me to gloss over them and make them sound more pleasant than they are. On the other hand, I do have to state that I have been consistently impressed with the staff of WFU Baptist. These are highly trained, dedicated and compassionate people. No blame is due to the perpetrators and administrators.

During my six days in the hospital as in my previous stays, I never felt neglected or ignored. At those rare times when the nurse and aid assigned to me were not available to answer my call, there was always a back-up person to come running. And, I have to add, the Baptist staff strikes me as committed to the concept of total care. These are warm people who constantly show concern for their patients, not bureaucrats constrained to business-like interactions.

Family Sleep-Overs Accepted

Baptist is also quite accepting about allowing a family member to stay overnight with the patient in the patient’s room. This is the situation with its cancer patients, in any case.

In the category of “ordeal” are several items. First having to get stuck so much for the drawing of blood and the establishing of IV’s. During my recent stay I underwent minor surgery to reduce the number of times I’ll have to get stuck in the future, that is, the installation of what is called a portocath or portable catheter in my chest. In addition to reducing the number of sticks, the portocath provides a central line hooked to a main artery of the body to minimize the danger of artery damage. The infusion of strong chemo like R-EPOCH can blow out small veins such as those in the arms.

Tied to Infusion Tree

Then there is the annoyance of being hooked up to an infusion tree. Everywhere you go—to the bathroom, for a walk in the halls—the tree with its very sophisticated electronic pumps goes with you. It is your constant companion. Fortunately, there are wheels at the bottom of the tree, but the thing is often unwieldy and you have to be very careful not to trip over it.

Another part of the ordeal is simply being in the hospital. That probably sounds like a contradiction after what I said about how good the staff at Baptist is. The good and the bad intertwined—that is so often the nature of life, right? When you are in the hospital, you are constrained. You are confined. You are forced to adhere to other people’s schedules and to do what other people think you ought to do when they think you ought to do it.

Prefer Writing, Walks

Frankly, I’d rather be sitting in front of my computer and composing a poem or a blog posting. I’d rather be listening to the birds sing as I walk with our Portuguese Water Dog Cassie Rose by a beautiful mountain stream and vicariously experience with her the pleasure she gets out of being able to dash in and out of the water at will.

Then there are all the changes that chemotherapy does to the body, which I’ve written about before—the hair loss, the nausea, the appetite changes, the fatigue, the occasional feelings of ineptness and stupidity. Not great.

What happens next? In about two weeks I’m back to Baptist for more R-EPOCH. I’ll have another CAT Scan, and then we’ll see. If I’m finally in remission, it’s full speed ahead to the bone marrow transplant. Anyway I hope that is what is in store for me. I’m anxious to get this episode in my life over and done with.

To see a sampling of the writings of this author, see the website at http://www.sasaftwrites.com.

Copyright © 2008 by Stephen Alan Saft

HOW IS MY HEALTH? NOT BAD AND OTHER GOOD NEWS

Two subjects for this posting: First a status report on my health and second an exciting announcement.

First of all, how is my health? Another and better way to phrase that question is: How am I feeling? Answer: I am feeling very well, thank you, and I am as surprised as anyone that I can say that. The reader may recall from two postings ago that with the failure of my treatment with Velcade I was about to undergo a different chemotherapy treatment regimen, this time with a four-drug cocktail known as either “Cold Ice” or “Bold Ice.” (Sorry to report that I haven’t yet solved this acronym naming dilemma, that is, what acronym to use for the combination of Ifosfamide, Carboplatin, and Etoposide, also known as VP-16, and Rituxan.)

This four drug cocktail is administered round-the-clock in the hospital and in my case took place over three days. So far I have had two separate treatment sessions. When I call this treatment regimen a “four-drug cocktail,” I am taking certain liberties. I am thinking of only the chemicals that have the job of directly attacking the cancer—Mantle Cell Lymphoma (MCL), in my case. Chemicals in addition to the big four are infused in the hospital. These chemicals have the job of protecting the kidneys and preventing nausea, among other jobs.

In Chemotherapy, Kidneys Important

Protecting the kidneys is very important in Bold Ice (or Cold Ice) infusion. In an infusion procedure, it is the kidneys that have the job of removing the saline that is a component of chemotherapy solutions and leaving the chemicals in the body, specifically in the blood stream, that have the job of working on the cancer.

When I say that I am feeling well, I am commenting on the combination of attitude, energy level, and experiences of pain and discomfort that I think of as the measure in total of that sense of being alive that I am calling “the life force.” No, I am not feeling perfect, and certainly two separate three-day chemotherapy sessions in the hospital have had negative effects, one of which is quite obvious.

The amount of hair on my body including on the top of my head is drastically reduced. In addition, my experience with food is altered. Related to a change in food interests is the intermittent battling with feelings of nausea and digestion issues, none of which has been severe so far.

Bring on Baked Beans

Chinese food, for example, now has no taste for me, and I have lost my interest in it. I do hope that my tastes for these foods will return, as they used to be part of my regular diet. On the other hand, foods that I have previously had only a mild interest in have drastically increased in appeal. At the top of this list is baked beans. I now love this product including the low-fat type. For me, baked beans have become a very soothing food and even a nausea-quelling staple.

Most gratifying for me is the fact that my energy-level has so far been only mildly impacted by the chemotherapy. Though in the midst of intensive chemotherapy, I have been able to undertake two challenging publishing ventures, which I will report on at the end of this posting. In addition, I am pleased that ideas for new writing projects have been coming to me at a fairly rapid rate.

Here’s an important aside about chemotherapy. When you are undergoing chemotherapy, you are holding two contrary wishes in your head: One is that the chemo will not make you too sick. The other is that the chemo will make you sick enough to kill the cancer inside your body. You sure don’t want what I experienced back when I was being treated with Velcade. You don’t want the treatment to be a total failure.

Not Terminal

In summary, I do not feel in any respect that I am close to death, in other words that I am terminal. I feel very much alive and hopeful. That said, I need to comment on the fact that I am moving ever closer to the next big stage in my medical treatment, which is the bone marrow transplant.

The idea behind the bone marrow transplant is that the patient has his blood chemistry redone. The hope is that through this extreme life-risking process the impurities in the blood that allow the generation of cancerous lymphocytes, a disease known as lymphoma, will be eliminated. Back six years ago, that is, in 2002, I had my first bone marrow transplant.

Called Autologous

Back then I was my own donor, that is, the basic stem cells that were used to rebuild my blood system came from me. The technical term for this kind of bone marrow transplant is “autologous.” The stem cells taken from me were purified to the maximum extent possible and then cryogenically frozen for later infusion in me.

In an allegenic bone marrow transplant, the stem cells come from a donor other than yourself. In this type of bone marrow transplant, the patient has an even greater chance of receiving a completely clean infusion. On the other hand, the risks from an allegenic bone marrow transplant are far higher, especially for anyone over 60. (I am approaching 69.)

Hoped for a Cure

Back in 2002 I hoped that the bone marrow transplant would cure me of lymphoma. What it did was give me five years of remission from the disease, but alas it was not a cure.

If and only if I am in remission from my latest chemotherapy—and that can only be determined in a CAT scan—I will go through a round of injections to build up the stem cells in my blood. My blood will be drawn so that the technicians can get at my stem cells, which will then be purified and preserved through a deep freezing or cryogenic process. What is left of the blood chemistry generation system that remains in me, most of which is centered in the hip bone, by the way, will then be killed.

Tense Time: Blood Chemistry Regeneration

The process of growing a new blood chemistry generation system in me will begin with the thawing of my purified stem cells and their infusion back into my body. Then comes the tense time when I and the medical staff wait for the reinfused stem cells to take up home in my hip bone and to regrow a new blood chemistry generation system. The whole process will take no less than seven weeks, and then there is the recuperation and recovery time, an indeterminate period.

I will be coming back to this subject of the bone marrow in subsequent postings, and so let me now switch to my big news, my “exciting announcement.” I have now signed a contract with Xlibris, an on-demand publishing service, for two books. My hope is that the first of these books will be available in about a month. The Xlibris bookstore is at the following address: http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore.

Announcing: Murdoch McLoon

The first book is a sea adventure called “Murdoch McLoon And His Windmill Boat, An Epic For Our Time.” The second book is called “City Above The Sea.” Both books are poetry. “Murdoch McLoon is a story poem, and both are illustrated featuring the work of talented illustrator Lisa Marie Brennan. Look for more information on both books in these pages and on my general website: http://www.sasaftwrites.com. It is anticipated that both books will have their own websites and will be offered through the Xlibris bookstore as well as Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Borders and other online outlets.

I will be providing more information on these two books in subsequent postings. Thanks for tuning in to Mind Check. Look for another posting in about two weeks.

Copyright © 2008 by Stephen Alan Saft

AN EARLY ENCOUNTER WITH AN AGGRESSIVE MEMBER OF THE OPPOSITE SEX

Last night I watched a fine documentary film called “Tony Bennett, The Music Never Ends.” This enjoyable piece of work, made by the director and actor Clint Eastwood, is a good overview of the life of Tony Bennett, born Anthony Dominick Benedetto, who also is a very accomplished painter.

Tony Bennett will be 82 years old this year, and he still keeps up a very demanding performance schedule. To say that I am envious of Tony Bennett’s continuing success as an artist in two different forms and his apparent good health at an advanced age is indisputable. One of the things Bennett says in the film, which really touched me, is—and I am reconstructing this quote from memory— “I am very happy with the way my life has turned out.” Tony Bennett, a man also very involved with the civil rights movements in this country; Tony Bennett, a very impressive human being.

Reviewing One’s Life

How many of us can say that we are very happy with the way our lives have turned out? I find that I spend a lot of time reviewing my life these days and thinking of the ways my life could have turned out differently—and yes, in some respects, better. It’s an exercise that my mind forces me into, in part because of my age, my circumstances, that is, health, and the fact that I am very analytical and very curious, traits that I think go along with my being a writer.

One of the conclusions I have come to is that the decisions that we make during our early years have everything to do with the person we are during our later years. A related conclusion is that even the slightest change in a decision, especially during the early years, will result in a major change in the outcome of a life. When I look, for example, at decisions I made as regards women, these conclusions become vivid in my mind.

Decision Means Turning Point

A clarification is very important before I go much further with this discussion. I am using the word “decision” to mean turning points in my life resulting from choices that I made. Seen from the distance of time these decisions or choices look really large, but at the time the decisions were made, many of them did not appear so monumental.

Part of this clarification has to deal with the nature of the word “decision” itself. Many times the decisions we make appear to be made for us and are the result of pressures coming from our families and others important in our lives. Many times the decisions are coming from very deep seated sources fundamental to our psychological makeup, and we can‘t be certain of their origins.


A Steel Pier Adventure

Let me take the case of a young woman I will call Alice who I met while working on Steel Pier in Atlantic City. It was the summer of 1955, and I was 16 years old, as was she, I think. Starting in the summer of 1953 and for the following four summers I worked for the refreshment stands of Steel Pier, an entertainment complex started by George Hamid and extending half mile out into the ocean at the Boardwalk and Virginia Avenue. For most of my four summers on the pier I was a stock boy doing jobs like emptying trash cans, sweeping the floor and keeping the counters supplied with orange and grape drink, which I and the other stock boys mixed in hidden ice houses on the pier, and with hot dogs, hamburgers, and ice cream.

Working behind the counters and attending to the customers were young women, also teenagers. Some of these young women attended the local public high school, as did I, but a number of them attended the local catholic high school and some of them commuted from the mainland and attended mainland high schools. It was thus an opportunity for teenagers who might not otherwise meet to get to know each other. Alice lived on the mainland. She was a pretty and intelligent young woman, and I enjoyed talking to her. She was also well endowed and as it turned out much more aggressive physically than I was used to.

Encounter in a Stock Room

I enjoyed talking to Alice, but it soon became apparent that she had another kind of relationship in mind. First she arranged for me to see her changing from her street clothes into her uniform with another of the counter girls in an area that doubled as an additional stock room. By simply opening a door when I knocked—which is the procedure that we stock boys were supposed to follow— Alice surprised me by letting me in and thus allowing me to see her in her bra, and she allowed me a long enough look that I had no doubt how well endowed she was. Second, a day later she came after me in one of one of the areas where we stock boys kept the ice and where we mixed orange and grape drinks.

That a girl could be that aggressive was entirely alien to me, and I rejected her. Not only did I reject her, but I lectured her on her behavior. A day later I carried the lecture even further. Accosting her on an outer deck that was used by some of the Steel Pier performers for periods of off stage relaxation, I said to her in an angry voice, as best I can remember, “We’re not the same religion, and I don’t see how any relationship between us could ever work out.” The poor girl was so chagrined by these multiple verbal onslaughts from me that she quit her job that day, and I never saw her again.

Such a Prig

Over the years I have frequently thought about the Alice episode in my life and with a variety of conflicted emotions. “How could I have been such a prig?” I have frequently asked myself. “How could I have been so cruel to her?” Given how my life turned out, my lecture on the differences in religion is especially absurd. Then I think about the squandered sexual opportunity. I was obviously not blind to her considerable physical appeal. Why then did I spurn her?

Was this then a case of her being the aggressor and my inability to deal with any situation in which I was not in control? I do have to admit that it would be a long time before I could be comfortable with any situation with a woman in which I did not feel I was in control. As a result I passed up many another opportunity for sexual experience after Alice during my early years. Then too there are the issues of class, issues I hate to admit but I’m afraid they were there. Despite her intelligence, I saw her as a poor girl, as an underprivileged girl; I saw myself as better than her economically. When it came to Alice, was I a snob? I’m afraid so.

Fear of Entrapment

Related is the fear of entrapment, even at the age of 16. I saw myself as college-bound. I saw pretty, well-endowed Alice as a possible trap, as someone who could get pregnant and keep me from realizing my college dreams. Yes, that fear was at work as well. And finally there was just plain fear of the opposite sex. I was a heterosexual male all right, but that didn’t stop me from being afraid of women. This fear took the form of being afraid of women’s bodies.

In a future posting I may face head on this fear of the opposite sex, but I am not ready to do that now. The reader will have to accept as a given this fact about me.

Complexity of Sex Drive

Where am I going with this discussion other than to reveal a fact about my early life and how my mind worked when I was younger? One important fact is how important sex was and is, as both a positive and negative force, but how complex our feelings about the subject are. Is the sex drive ever a pure emotion disconnected from other considerations? Probably not.

I do hope life turned out okay for Alice. I do hope she didn’t waste too much mental energy dwelling on the mean stock boy who spurned her advances on Steel Pier the summer of 1955.

To see a sampling of the other writing of Stephen Alan Saft, also known as S.A. Saft, see the website http://www.sasaftwrites.com.

Copyright © 2008 by Stephen Alan Saft

REPORT FROM THE CHEMO WARS: HOPE PLACED IN NEW GROUP OF CHEMICALS

Imagine if someone came to you and said, “You think you are healthy. You think you are feeling just fine, but I know from tests that I have had conducted on you that you are really carrying around a disease inside you that eventually will shut down some of your major organs while causing major discomfort and considerable pain and then will kill you.

“Now in order to save you what I want to do is make you very sick and even threaten your life. You can count on it making you feel nauseous and stupid and very tired at times, and you’ll lose your hair. And, by the way, you need to know that I make no guarantees that what I am about to do will in fact save you. It might fail, and you’ll die anyway.”

“Forget it!”

Would you consent to going through the extreme, life-threatening procedure? Or would you say, “Forget it. I’ll take my chances by doing nothing. And I’ll save myself a lot of discomfort and pain in the process.” That is until the ultimate discomfort and pain, of course.

This is the kind of choice that a number of cancer experts presented me with back in 2001-2002, an option that I chose, and this is the proposition that has once again been put to me in 2007-2008 by another group of experts. That is the kind of proposition that our health care system with its advanced diagnostic procedures is now routinely able to present to us, the kind of decision that was never possible before in human history.

Complicated for the Mind

In being able to formulate decisions of this type, our medical science has fundamentally changed the very nature of the way we live our lives. Momentous decisions are now put in the hands of our health care providers and in our own hands as patients. All of which helps to provide one of a slew of reasons why life in the 21st Century becomes ever more demanding and complicated for the mind.

Okay, so that’s where I am in my latest round of medical treatments for my fatal disease. I have chosen to go down a similar road that I went down in 2002. That road brought me to Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, and to an autologous bone marrow transplant. That road brought me five years of remission from my MCL or Mantle Cell Lymphoma.

Wake Forest University

Now I have relapsed, and I have chosen to go down a similar but not an identical road. For one thing, I am going down this road with Wake Forest University Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. For another, my oncologist is now a bright young doctor named Denise Levitan. Then too I am being treated with a whole new group of chemicals, at least for this initial phase of my treatment. I am being treated with a suite of chemicals known by the acronym of “Cold Ice.”

What happened to Velcade? A few postings ago, I was filled with not a little optimism about a product known by the generic name of Bortezomib, trade name of Velcade, a proteasome inhibitor. As I explained back then, a proteasome inhibitor has the job of keeping biological mistakes from living, which is what those of us trying to survive cancer want to happen. We want the body’s cancer mistakes to die.

Yes, I went through eight treatments with Velcade as part of a two-drug cocktail. Specifically I received eight Velcade treatments and two Rituxan treatments over a period of six weeks. What do I have to show for it? Nothing, I’m afraid. When I had a CAT scan at the end of my treatment it showed that the lymph node in the mesentery region of my abdominal cavity that we are using as the barometer of my disease had not shrunk at all. In fact, it had grown slightly. Bad news.

Four-Drug Cocktail

And that brings me to Cold Ice. Cold Ice is a four-drug cocktail that happens to include Rituxan. “Why do you want to continue to use Rituxan even though it did not do a thing for me when used with Velcade?” I asked my oncologist. “For its complementary effects,” she responded. “We still like the way it interacts with other drugs.” Also as previously explained in this forum, Rituxan, generic name Rituximab, is a monoclonal antibody that is supposed to do its thing by targeting for destruction a specific antibody in a lymphoma mass. As we now know, it doesn’t always do what we want it to do, but I do hope it works this time. My tolerance for failures is limited.

What is Rituxan supposed to work with this time? These three: Ifosfamide, Carboplatin, and Etoposide, also known as VP-16. The three compose the ICE in the acronym while presumably the “Cold” portion is the Rituxan. All three chemicals are DNA “messer-uppers,”—if I may be forgiven a very unscientific term--either because they force the body to produce easily killed lymphoma cells with corrupt DNA or they interfere with the efforts of the cancer cells to repair damaged DNA and thus save themselves. Remember once again that the objective in our cancer wars is for cancer cells to die.

Only If Remission

Once the Cold Ice puts me into remission –and only when it puts me into remission—can I then proceed to finish the process. That process is finished this time around with an autologous bone marrow transplant. The latest studies for autologous bone marrow transplants for relapsed victims of MCL, which I am, remain somewhat encouraging. In an upcoming Mind Check, I’ll have more to say about autologous bone marrow transplants as well as their counterpart allegenic BMT.

Once again, however, we are not talking about a cure, but a prolonging of life.

To see a sampling of the other writing of Stephen Alan Saft, also known as S.A. Saft, see the website http://www.sasaftwrites.com.

Copyright © 2008 by Stephen Alan Saft

A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR THE PERFORMANCE ENHANCING STEROID CRISIS

Whenever the subject of performance enhancing steroids and athletics takes center stage in our frenetic world of public media, it is almost always accompanied by examples of destroyed reputations and painful humiliations among our athletes and the profound sense of disappointment on the part of everyone who cares about sports and our sports heroes.

The saddest example of what I’m talking about is the story of Marion Jones, a star of track and field, who had to give back five Olympic medals earned at the 2000 Olympic Games when she admitted to having taken performance enhancing steroids. Once celebrated as the world’s most gifted female athlete, Jones also had to endure a six month prison sentence for lying to a Grand Jury.

Who’s Telling The Truth?

In the battle of ace pitcher Roger Clemens and his one-time friend and trainer Brian McNamee before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, we are subjected to yet another ugly installment of the performance enhancing steroid saga. Who is telling the truth about performance enhancing drug use, pitcher Roger Clemens, definitely one of the heroes of the game, or trainer Brian McNamee? And who will be subjected to a prison term for lying to a committee of the U.S. Congress? Stay tuned to find out.

Will the unholy alliance of performance enhancing steroids and athletics never go away? Maybe not. That’s because every party to the issue including the public has different ideas about the rightness and wrongness of the issue, and too many would prefer not to think about it at all. They just want it to go away. Their anger, if they’re feeling it at all, has mostly to do with being forced to think about it because a segment of the evening news has pushed it under their noses.

Let’s Not Be Naive

And let’s not be naive. There are powerful reasons for athletes to think they need to take performance enhancing steroids and human growth hormone, not least of which is the fear that everyone else in their sport is doing it, and they’re afraid of not remaining competitive. The economic motivations are just some of the reasons. Athletes do care about breaking records in their respective sports, and they do care about longevity in their chosen sport. They love the way winning makes them feel about themselves and the accompanying adulation.

On the other hand, we can’t let our athletes take performance enhancing drugs, can we? How “real” is the game we’re watching as sports fans if we do that? How “honest” is it? Doesn’t the game simply become a case of who has the best pharmacy and the best personal pharmacologist? Is that what we want for our professional teams? Is that what we want as a role model for our young people?

The Libertarian Solution

Or do we really care? Do we really care that although a slew of laws and regulations are already on the books that they are regularly being ignored or violated? Okay here’s my proposal. We decide not to ban steroids at all. We stop all drug testing. Not just in the United States but world-wide. We say that anything goes. Let the athletes be free to take whatever they want, in whatever quantity they want, and as often as they like. Let the athletes decide whether they are willing to chance the health risks. That’s not the public’s concern. In other words we adopt the libertarian solution.

On the other hand, to ensure that public morality prevails and to help ensure public confidence in our professional sports, we will insist on this: All athletes taking performance enhancing substances or who owe their participation in their sport to having used the human growth hormone in the past must wear a prominent sign, both front and back, whenever they are performing their sport that says the following: “Steroid User.” Furthermore in the telecasts of all sporting events, a graphic must appear on screen containing the same information anytime the image of an athlete appears who is a previous or current user. “Steroid User” will flash across the screen.

Steroid User Sign

My proposal also provides a solution for the Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire dilemma. How do we handle the achievements of these baseball players in the record books? We use the asterisk approach in print media, as has been already suggested a number of times and which, as far as a I know, is already being done in some cases, but we also use the graphic approach any time their images appear, whether in print or in video. On audio, whether radio or a recording, an announcer would have the job of giving voice to some version of the “performance enhancing drugs” statement. At the same the official game program for each game would also have to include indicators as to who the steroid drug users are.

Drug Pavilion at Cooperstown

As for future record books, they should probably be published with “drugs” and “drug free” sections. The Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, would include a special “performance enhancing drugs” pavilion. Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire would appear in that wing, not in the same room with Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth and Roger Maris. Pitchers would be handled in a similar manner. Depending how the current Clements McNamee hassle plays out, Roger Clements, that is, his picture and statue, could end up in the special “drugs user” pavilion at Cooperstown.

What do you think of my proposal? Let me know, and anyone interested in sending in a donation for the new “Drugs Pavilion” at Cooperstown why send it right in. Remember to mark your check for the Performance Enhancing Steroid Drug User Pavilion at the Baseball Hall of Fame. Okay, I admit that this is not a pretty proposal. It’s borne out of frustration, a lot of it.

Mandatory Drug Testing

If you don’t like that idea how about that we fully enforce the laws that are already on the books including random, mandatory steroid drug testing? And, yes, cheaters, that is, people who manufacture, sell, inject, and use substances that happen for the moment not to be detectable through current testing technology are guaranteed substantial jail terms, probably even more severe terms than others.

Not pretty at all, right? but the alternate is even less pretty, and that is, to have more and more Marion Jones’s having to give back medals and having to spend time in prison. Nothing pretty about that.

To see a sampling of the other writing of Stephen Alan Saft, also known as S.A. Saft, see the website http://www.sasaftwrites.com.

Copyright © 2008 by Stephen Alan Saft