KEN WILBER BOOK IS INSPIRATION FOR MY OWN THOUGHTS ABOUT DEATH

A friend lent me her copy of Grace And Grit, Spirituality And Healing In The Life And Death of Treya Killam Wilber by Ken Wilber, and reading the book has been a very moving experience for me. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is wrestling with the question of death and dying and especially anyone wrestling with the question of death and dying from cancer.

That said, please be advised that Grace and Grit is not easy reading at all as it deals in considerable detail with the five year struggle of Treya Killam Wilber, wife of the author, with the complications from a diagnosis of breast cancer, very possibly all the complications that are possible from this disease. To put it simply Treya went through hell before her death, and Ken was right there with her, the perfect caregiver, anyway damn close to it.

Diagnosis Within Weeks of Marriage

Treya, born Terry Killam, had the misfortune to be diagnosed with breast cancer within weeks of marrying Ken Wilber, noted philosopher and writer. Wilber writes extensively on the interconnections of the spiritual and physical worlds. Treya and Ken then spent the next five years dealing with Treya’s disease. Demonstrating immense courage, Treya tried a combination of conventional and unconventional medical approaches and spiritual practices, particularly of the Eastern variety. Her attempts to save herself included a prolonged round of treatments in Bonn, Germany. Eventually, however, the tumors infesting her body including her brain proved too much to overcome, and she died at home with her husband and other family members and friends by her side.

In putting the book together, Ken incorporated a number of passages from Treya’s journals and letters. Hence the book is a record of two points of view—of Treya, the victim, and of Ken, the principal caregiver. In this case, the approach serves to underscore just how close this husband and wife were during the entire ordeal, the one exception being a dark period at about the two-year anniversary when the two drew apart and became hostile toward each other. Ken even contemplated suicide during this highly stressful low point in their relationship.

Facing Up To My Own Mortality

For me, the book proved especially useful in helping me hone my view of the difficult subject of death. I have had to face up to my own mortality at different periods in my life—first when I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer at the age of 27 in 1966. None of us like to think of our own mortality. We prefer to think of ourselves as never dying, of living forever. Death is all around us, but we are adept at ignoring it. We prefer to think that it will never happen to us. We’re going to go on indefinitely forever, right?

Now having gone through my second bone marrow transplant about six months ago, the subject has presented itself once again. No, I’m not going to live forever. Yes, I’m going to die. Being able to accept the inevitability of death has a certain liberating effect. Since it’s going to happen to me someday, there’s no sense dwelling on it. No sense worrying about it. And it’s not just going to happen to me. I am not being singled out. It‘s going to happen to everyone.

Rules of the Game of Life

These are the rules of the game called life. The fact of death is a common bond that all human beings share. You can feel remorse about it, and as a lover of life I do, but it makes no sense feeling hurt or spiteful or angry, even though all of us do experience these emotions at some point.

I confess that at times when the reality seems more than a little overwhelming, I take some solace from a game that I play on occasion. It’s a game I play entirely in my own mind so you are not likely to know I am playing it. Sometimes I bring the game into play at a public event or in a social situation, let’s say at a not entirely enjoyable party. The game involves looking at each of the people around me and thinking, “It’s not just my fate, but you’re not going to escape nor are you or you or you or you, etc. None of us are because we’re all mortal.”

Basis for World’s Religions

At this point I could attempt to come forward with some profound statements about how the fact of death is the basis for all of the world’s religions. The common bond of our mortality including the common fear of death has led almost all of us to seek solace and hope in the answers provided by established religion. In my case, long a believer in the power of reason including the scientific method I have of late seen more clearly the limitations of these approaches and conversely have found more answers in spiritual explorations.

I find it ironic that as an undergraduate taking a required History of Religions course I found Hinduism the most difficult of the major religions to understand and appreciate. Now I find this ancient religion the easiest to understand and appreciate—specifically the concept that God is in all of us. The divine lives in all of us, ready to be discovered when we have the inclination. The greatest manifestation of this reality is love.

Thanks for tuning into Mind Check. For a look at my other writing, see the website http://www.sasaftwrites.com. Please note that my two latest books, Murdoch McLoon And His Windmill Boat and City Above The Sea And Other Poems are now available online. They’re both available from the sasaft website and also from the xlibris.com website. And now it’s off to the Big Island of Hawaii with wife Harriet and godson Stephen to see my son Scott, daughter-in-law Yumiko and grandson Sebi. Perhaps I’ll have more to say about this trip in my next posting.

Copyright © 2009 by Stephen Alan Saft

MOMENTOUS YEAR REACHES ITS HIGH POINT WITH GODCHILD REUNION

This is an appropriate time to be reviewing the events of 2008. The start of a new year is just a week away, and it is normal at a time like this to be looking back and asking, “What kind of year was it anyway?”

One word sums it up for me. “Momentous.” The election of the first African American as President in our history made sure of that. As long as anyone will care about American history, the year 2008 will have its special consideration—as the year Barack Obama got elected. It was also a year that the high flying U.S. economy started unraveling, but let us hope that that end-of-year phenomenon will be short lived under the management of a new Obama Administration.

Second Bone Marrow Transplant

For me, 2008 was a year of special significance for several other reasons. It was a year during which I underwent the second bone marrow transplant of my life. The bone marrow transplant, which I had first gone through in 2002, was again urged on me to fight the reoccurrence of the blood cancer called lymphoma. It was also a year during which I managed to publish two books of poetry (see my website for more details: http://www.sasaftwrites.com), and it was the year that I was reunited with Stephen Johnson, my godson. In fact, the latter proved to be the most dramatic event of all for me.

I was lying in my bed in the bone marrow transplant ward on the ninth floor of the Reynolds Tower of Baptist Hospital, Winston-Salem, North Carolina sometime in mid July when the phone on the stand next to my bed rang. I picked it up, and the caller on the other end introduced himself as someone I had not spoken with in many years. He said his name was Stephen Johnson. He said he was my godson.

Hearing Name Is Enough

As soon as I heard his name, even before the word “godson” registered, I knew who he was. The emotion surged in me. Indeed we hadn’t spoken in many years—over 20 in fact. When we were last in touch Stephen wasn’t quite a teenager, probably 12 years old. And yes indeed he was my godson, my godson who I had abandoned for reasons, however misguided, around 1987.

His mother, a single black woman who had worked for my first wife and me as a cleaning lady in Brooklyn by name of Martha Jean Johnson, had asked me to serve as Stephen’s godfather just before he was born in 1968. He was a baby boy coming into the world in Harlem Hospital without a father, and it seemed to me that the least I could do was say “yes” to Martha Jean’s request. My assumption was that a godfather was expected to serve as a role model, and this was a responsibility that I felt flattered to be asked to fulfill. How could I refuse?

Share Room With Stephen

Even after I moved away from New York City, first to New Jersey, then to Maine, and then to the Washington, D.C., area I had kept in touch with Martha Jean and Stephen—at the very least sending them presents at holiday time. At some point when my first marriage was falling apart I fled Maine for New York City and spent at least one night with Martha Jean and Stephen in their Lower East Side apartment where Stephen let me share his room with him.

Just before wife Harriet and I were married in 1980, the second marriage for both of us, we met in New York where she was taking computer training. By then I had relocated to Washington, and both Harriet and I were working for a Washington, D.C. corporation in the satellite communications business. During that visit, we got together with Stephen and Martha Jean in Brooklyn Heights, and as best I can remember the four of us walked around this old Brooklyn neighborhood together, a neighborhood famous for its Promenade overlooking the Lower West side of Manhattan and New York Harbor. Brooklyn Heights had been the first place in the city where I had lived just after leaving graduate school at Yale in 1963.

Go To The Boat Show

Even earlier Stephen remembers my taking him to the New York Boat Show at what was then called the New York Coliseum up on Columbus Circle when I was still living in Maine and working for a publication called National Fisherman based in the Penobscot Bay town of Camden. National Fisherman would have an exhibit booth at the New York Boat Show every year as a base from which to sell advertising space in the publication and to drum up subscription sales, and those of us on the editorial side of the operation would also have our chance to be present at the show and to take advantage of what the big city had to offer.

The break with Stephen and his mother occurred in the mid 1980s, and it was entirely my fault. I fell on hard times, first losing my job with the satellite communications company, then a little more than a year later losing a new job as director of communications for an association in Silver Spring, Maryland. I had been sending Stephen and Martha Jean presents at Christmas time, as I indicated, but with the loss of the second job I felt devastated. By this time I had taken on the responsibility of trying to put my son through an expensive eastern college, and I had no idea how I was going to be able to manage it now with the loss of the second job.

Low Opinion of Myself

Not only did I stop the presents to Stephen and Martha Jean, but the communication as well—an act of extremism that didn’t have to be. I felt embarrassed that I was in such dire straights financially, and I’m afraid I overreacted. In my mind at the time, presents and caring about another human being were one in the same thing. It didn’t occur to me that Stephen needed the continuing attention of an adult male far more than he needed some extra dollars at Christmas time. Yes, I was suffering from a very low opinion of myself at the time. The loss of jobs will do that to you.

Now we jump ahead to July 2008. It struck me as a miracle that Stephen had gotten in touch with me. It struck me that I was being given a second chance to make amends to this man, now in his early 40s, to make up for my failures as a role model the first time around. I didn’t want to mess it up. I wanted to be the godfather now that I felt I had not been before.

Hyatt Hotel Jersey City

In the course of that fateful telephone conversation from my bed in Baptist Hospital, I learned that Martha Jean had died at least five years before. Stephen was married now, he told me. In fact, he had an 18-year-old daughter, but amazingly he was still living in the same Lower East Side apartment where I had once stayed and shared a room with him. Yes, I was older now with a much stronger idea of the responsibility that we bear each other. I wasn’t going to be so cavalier about my relationship with Stephen Johnson ever again.

Since then we’ve been together twice, first in Greensboro, North Carolina, where we met after one of my follow-up sessions at Baptist Hospital, then in New York during Thanksgiving when Harriet and I stayed at the Hyatt Hotel Jersey City and were treated to the breathtaking views of Lower West Side Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and where Stephen played the role of chauffeur and drove us all around the city. During the first visit we met Stephen’s adopted sister Melissa, and during the second Marsha, his wife, Camille, his daughter, and Cita, Marsha’s mother from Trinidad as well as Melissa, all wonderful people who we thoroughly enjoyed being with. And now we are just about to go to the Big Island of Hawaii with Stephen where we will be getting together with son Scott, his wife Yumiko and our grandson Sebi (Sebastian).

38 Year Reunion

As best I can figure—and I took the photographs that are a record of the event—Scott and Stephen were last together in 1970 when Scott was four and Stephen was two. Now they’ll be getting together again 38 years later.

Thanks entirely to Stephen’s courage and initiative, I’ve been given this second chance to make a whole new relationship with him, and I’m not going to squander the opportunity this time. This time I’m going to be the godfather that fate has meant me to be.

Thanks for tuning into Mind Check. For a look at my other writing, see the website http://www.sasaftwrites.com. Please note that my two latest books, Murdoch McLoon And His Windmill Boat and City Above The Sea And Other Poems are now available online. They would make wonderful holiday presents for people you care about. They’re both available from the sasaft website. Have a healthy and happy 2009.

Copyright © 2008 by Stephen Alan Saft

WE MUST HELP THE U.S.AUTO INDUSTRY, BUT WE MUST INSIST ON FAIR TERMS FOR THE U.S. TAX PAYER

The fiscal crisis spreading like influenza throughout the world has for the moment infected the U.S. auto industry. Should the U.S. Congress use tax payer funds to bail out the U.S. auto industry just as it is currently bailing out the U.S. financial industry and attempting to bail out the U.S. housing industry?

Like each of the bail-out plans that has come before Congress, the U.S. auto industry bail-out score has been accompanied by a howling chorus of nay sayers singing an angry counterpoint. The negative lyrics of this chorus include such lines as “let them fail. We don’t care if they go out of business. All they know how to build is over sized gas guzzlers that pollute the environment.”

UAW Blamed

Still another set of lines pertains to the United Auto Workers (UAW) Union and unions in general. These lines say something like this: “It’s the UAW with a long history of sweetheart contracts with management, the result of the repeated capitulations of management over the years, that has brought the U.S. auto industry to the low state it finds itself. Now is the time to get rid of the UAW and maybe the industry itself will revive. And while we’re at it let’s get rid of all labor unions.”

What is to be done? The higher pay and benefits won by the UAW for its worker members over the decades of union contract negotiations has helped to make these workers and their families even more valuable contributors to society as tax payers, as consumers of products and services in their respective communities, and as involved citizens active in community affairs than would have been possible had they been members of an oppressed working class as they once were during Henry Ford’s time.

Good Pay Hurts Competitiveness

On the other hand, the case can be made that these same workers with their middle class pay and benefit packages have contributed to the declining competitiveness of the industry of which they are part as that industry attempts to compete with the products of foreign manufacturers with a work force often earning much less and receiving much less in benefits. They’ve accomplished that simply by doing what all of us humans do by instinct, that is, to seek to improve our situations in life.

Nor can we remove from blame the senior executives of these organizations with their obscene pay and benefit packages and the corporate jets at their disposal costing $35 million or more. They too have played a role in keeping the U.S. auto industry less competitive than it should have been.

Horrendous Ripple Effect

Do we let this industry employing hundreds of thousands of people throughout the country just go out of business? The ripple effect would be horrendous with not just assembly line workers but all the people who make the tires, the glass, the batteries, the electronics, and other parts as well as all the people employed at the dealerships out of work as well. No, we simply can’t let that happen. The unemployment figures are already alarming enough. Imagine those figures two to three times as high.

Do We Attach Strings?

And so I ask the question again. What is to be done? Now is a good time for a reexamination of the economic and political principles that lie at the heart of our most sacred assumptions. Do we attach strings to the bail-out funds for the industry? Do we say to both senior management and union rank and file, “We’ll give you several billion of taxpayer money. Now you agree to substantial pay cuts and benefit cuts until this industry can turn out affordable products that will compete with the products of the Japanese and the Koreans—products that have less of a negative impact on the environment ”

The answer in my opinion is a resounding “yes.” These same strings need to be applied, in my opinion, to all organizations receiving taxpayer hand outs. Communism is dead and good riddance to it. Even socialism has significantly less standing now than it did during the middle of the last century. We don’t need to be guided by these left wing philosophies, but what we do need is to uphold a middle ground philosophy that accounts for individual rights, but which still encompasses the interests of all of us as a group with common needs and interests as citizens or taxpayers—a community of common interests.

Survival With Healthy Economy

Our common need and interest is the survival of this country, survival with as healthy an economy as possible. This, I believe, is part of the concept of “happiness” as stated by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence—our “unalienable rights” including “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

A political philosophy that comes closest to expressing this concept of a middle ground philosophy that respects both individual rights and the common needs of the members of society is called Communitarianism. One of its spokesmen is the philosopher Amitai Etzioni, who for many years was associated with George Washington University in Washington, D.C., my former employer. Etzioni has done a lot of critical thinking about supposed conflict concepts such as the rights of pedophiles versus the rights of society to be protected against pedophiles.

Etzioni’s Golden Rule

Etzioni proposes a new Golden Rule, which goes like this: “Respect and uphold society’s moral order as you would have society respect and uphold your autonomy.”

Okay, so what do we need to expect from the auto industry—both labor and management—in turn for the bail-out? Here are the terms I would impose:

• Cars and other vehicles must be built to the highest safety standards

• Cars and other vehicles must be built to last as long as possible. No more planned obsolescence.

• Warranties must be fully guaranteed and protected by federal law and fully transferable from owner to owner, that is, if the vehicles are fuel efficient

• There must be across the board commitment to hybrid technology including hybrid and electric car combinations. No new vehicles getting less than 20 miles per gallon. Outlaw them.

• A federal board—the Fair Executive Compensation Board--established by Congress to review and approve (or veto) all executive compensation above $250,000 per year, criterion number one for this board, the effect on car prices and competitiveness

• A federal board—the Fair Labor Contracts Board—established by Congress to review and approve (or veto) all labor contracts, criterion number one for this board, the effect on car prices and competitiveness.

Thanks for tuning into Mind Check. For a look at my other writing, see the website http://www.sasaftwrites.com. Please note that my latest book, Murdoch McLoon And His Windmill Boat, is now available. It would make a wonderful holiday present for someone you care about. It can be ordered on line. I am also happy to announce that still another new book by Stephen Alan Saft, City Above The Sea And Other Poems, is nearing completion. In fact, you can also order it on line right now. You’ll learn more about both books at the sasaftwrites website.

Copyright © 2008 by Stephen Alan Saft

A NEW CAR OR HOW THE SELF THAT LOVES THE NEW TRUMPED SECURITY OBSESSED SELVES

Why did I buy a new car at a time like this? The economy is in the doldrums, and optimism about anything having to do with spending money for anything is extremely hard to find. Yet a couple of days ago I went to a car dealer in Blacksburg, Virginia, home of Virginia Tech, and traded in my 2003 Subaru Outback for a 2009 Ford Hybrid Escape equipped with four-wheel drive.

I’m extremely adept at questioning yesterday’s decisions, especially when it comes to decisions about spending a lot of money. I do this all the time. I’ll get very excited about some new acquisition. I’ll give passing attention to questions about whether it's affordable or not. I’ll quickly convince myself that I can handle the expenses, and then I’m back to musing on how much I want to have whatever it is. I’ll make the purchase, and within hours the second guessing sets in. Why did I spend all that money? How will I ever afford it?

Delayed Soul Searching

Why didn’t I go through such soul searching before the purchase was made? Why the intense questioning now when the purchase is a done deal?

An article in the latest issue of The Atlantic, one of many periodicals that I read, helps to explain the phenomenon and makes me feel that I am not such an odd ball after all. The article is entitled “First Person Plural,” by Paul Bloom (The Atlantic, November 2008, pages 90-98). Paul Bloom teaches psychology at Yale University.

Community of Competing Selves

What the article suggests is that in each of us is more than one self and that some of these selves often may be in conflict with one another. Certainly they can be driven by different motives. Says psychologist Bloom, “Many researchers now believe, to varying degrees, that each of us is a community of competing selves, with the happiness of one often causing the misery of another.” Later, he explains, “The idea is that…within each brain different selves are continually popping in and out of existence. They have different desires, and they fight for control—bargaining with, deceiving, and plotting against one another.”

In my case, one self gets easily excited about the new—new technology, new ways of doing things. This self can hardly contain itself when what is new seems to have a practical benefit and at the same time appears to be the socially responsible thing to do. I started getting excited about the idea of owning a hybrid during the spring of 2008 when gasoline prices began their steep rise. I became obsessed with the fuel gage on the Subaru. I’d watch it drop before my eyes as the vehicle traveled the windy mountain roads we have in this area, and I’d be struck with some dread as the thought crossed my mind, “Oh no, I’ve got to buy fuel again.” Then I’d feel more pain at the gas pump as the total on the fuel pump gage went beyond $50.

Negatives With The Subaru

I was also motivated, I have to admit, by the increasing sluggishness of the Subaru when climbing the kind of hills we have here in the mountains of Southwest Virginia, and my motivation increased even more when I returned from Baptist Hospital this summer, where I had my second bone marrow transplant, with knees that weren’t working very well and heightened sensitivity in the legs to any feeling of being cramped. I should mention that I now measure six feet three inches tall, and a good bit of that height is in my legs. (When I was younger I was over six feet five inches in height.)

Then too I need to mention that the odometer on the Subaru was getting closer and closer to the 100,000 mile mark, and under any circumstances it makes sense that I might feel that I was at some kind of decision point about the car.

Self Obsessed With Security

Hence the self that was easily excited about the new could assemble lots of supporting evidence to justify the idea of a trade-in. Another self, however, is obsessed with issues having to do with security. Overwhelmed by the self that is the lover of the new, this self kept pretty quiet until the deal was made. Only then did it adopt a loud and relentlessly negative refrain. “How can a person like you, retired and living on a fixed income, afford the significantly higher monthly payments for the new vehicle? Was this a smart thing to do?” it asked with a decidedly skeptical—even snide—tone to the imagined voice.

Then too there are other negative issues, but determining who the self is in these cases may not be so easy to figure out.

Given Your Health, Why?

“Given your health situation what are you doing buying a new car?” asks one such negative self. “You may not have very much time to enjoy it.” Then there is the issue of the down payment. Says still another negative voice: “You took a big bite out of your cash reserves to try and keep your monthly payments in line. Up to this point, you were using your cash reserves to fund your publishing ventures. You may never be able to put up the money to work with a print-on-demand (POD) publisher again after this expenditure.”

Obviously, this negative self isn’t thinking about the issue raised by the self who questioned my health and limited longevity. If I don’t have too much longer to live, what difference does it make if I won’t be able to afford to work with a print-on-demand publisher again? Another response to the negative self questioning my decision has been resounding in my mind of late: “Isn’t it time you found a publisher who doesn’t require any of your own money? Haven’t you earned the right to a publisher who will risk his or her own funds to publish your work?” Yes! Yes! Yes!

Preoccupied With New Car

Either each of the negative selves must be answered if I am ever going to have another moment of peace and get a chance to enjoy the new car or with the passage of time these negative selves must run out of energy. In fact, both parts of this proposition are coming to fruition. One way they are coming to fruition is through the new car itself. By focusing on the demands of the car, I’m having less time to listen to the negative voices. A case in point is the built-in telephone or specifically the built-in cell phone system.

Because Harriet and I are about to take the car on a long Thanksgiving holiday trip to Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, I am intent on getting the built-in cell phone system called Synch working so that we can send and receive calls without having to have a cell phone squashed to an ear. The built-in system takes over the operation of your cell phone. Calls come in to the center console on the dashboard, and they go out the same way. No need to use the actual cell phone itself at all.

Incoming Calls Okay, Not Out

To date, I’ve gotten half the system working properly—the part of the system that receives calls—but I’m still trying to have calls go out through the use of voice commands. That part of the system doesn’t want to work for some reason. If that problem persists, then I’ll have to make a trip back to the dealer to see the salesman who sold me the car and who seems to be an expert in the Synch system.

I’m also at an early stage of going through the main owner’s manual to learn the fine points of operating the car. The operation of a hybrid differs in some important ways from the operation of a conventional gasoline-powered car, and I am trying to learn as much as possible before daring to take the vehicle on a long trip, such as we plan in just two weeks.

By Nature An Optimist

In other words, I’m already quite involved with the new car, and this involvement is leaving me less and less time for the voices of my negative selves. By nature, I am a positive optimistic person. I suppose one can argue that the voices of optimism are still another self inside me. It looks like the positive optimistic self is starting to take over. It’s starting to quiet the negative voices. “Let the good times roll.” That’s what my positive optimistic voice is saying. “Yes, let the good times roll!”

Thanks for tuning into Mind Check. For a look at my other writing, see the website http://www.sasaftwrites.com. Please note that my latest book, Murdoch McLoon And His Windmill Boat, is now available. It would make a wonderful holiday present for someone you care about. It can be ordered on line. I am also happy to announce that still another new book by Stephen Alan Saft, City Above The Sea And Other Poems, is nearing completion. You’ll learn more about both books at the sasaftwrites website.

Copyright © 2008 by Stephen Alan Saft

QUESTIONS ANSWERED: EXPERT PRESENTS HIS ASSESSMENT OF THE CASE

Kenneth Zamkoff, M.D., is an energetic man of about fifty—about six feet tall—with a salt and pepper beard that is half way between full and a starter. He is direct, energetic and even loud. Only someone who was stone deaf would have a hard time hearing Dr. Zamkoff. He is now my oncologist, as the oncologist originally assigned to me at Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Denise Levitan, is out on maternity leave.

I didn’t know what to make of him during our first meeting a month ago, but he made a much stronger impression during the meeting in October. Along the way, I had become aware of the fact that Dr. Zamkoff was a specialist in lymphoma and was specifically very knowledgeable about Mantle Cell B Lymphoma, my disease. When I first saw him in the examining room this time, he disappointed me with the news that he had never gotten my letter, that is the letter containing the questions that I presented in the last posting. He then heard me out as I put each question to him, and he provided the answers I was seeking.

First Question: Lymph Node

My first question had to do with the continued presence of the cancerous lymph node in my abdomen. What did this mean? The second bone marrow transplant had not eliminated the lymph node in my mesentery. Because it had not gotten rid of it, was this second bone marrow transplant a failure? “No,” Zamkoff answered, “the lymph node is smaller than it was, and it may be less active than it was or not active at all.”

So should we do something right away to find out about the activity level? “Should I have another PET Scan?” I asked. “Another PET Scan or a laparoscopic biopsy,” he answered. I wasn’t happy to hear the reference to laparoscopic surgery, which I had already tried, as reported in a Mind Check posting in the fall of 2007. The laparoscopic procedure, although short in duration, had come complete with its own memorable trauma. And so I pushed the idea of a PET Scan. Then he surprised me by turning the tables on me by confronting me with a couple of questions I was ill equipped to answer.

Already Tried Velcade

“And what is that going to tell us?” he asked. “How active it is.” I answered. “And if it is active, what are we going to do about it?” “I don’t know,” I responded. How could I answer such a question? “You’ve already tried Velcade, right?” he asked referring to the so-called wonder drug for relapsed lymphoma that had been administered late last year.

“Yes,” I responded, “and it didn’t do a thing.” “In fact, the node was larger after Velcade treatment than it was before,” he interjected while flipping through a sheaf of paper which must have been my medical records. “That’s the problem,” he responded. “We’re running out of options. I’m going to do some research and see what else we could try, but we’ve already done the obvious things.”

Go Home And Forget About It

He looked right at me. “My advice to you is that you go home and forget about it. My advice to you is that you go home and live your life.”

In other words, he was advising me not to think about the finger nail size thing inside me—the dangerous lymph node—but to get on with my life, that nothing was to be gained by worrying about it. However, just so I would not go home and become too complacent he risked contradicting himself by asserting, “ I can tell you this, it will come back.” Then to make sure I did not miss what he had said he repeated it. “Based on my experience with this disease, it will come back.”

Remission First Time

Any reason for hope then? “How much of a remission did you get from the first bone marrow transplant?” he asked. “Five years,” I responded. “Five years, okay,” he was almost shouting. “Now that is a reason for hope. Maybe you can get almost as much time out of this bone marrow transplant as the first one.”

And what about my knees? Could I or should I consider knee replacement surgery? “We can’t make that decision now,” he answered. ‘You’re not ready now. Let’s wait three months and see how you’re doing. If you’re doing okay, and you still think you want and need to do something about the knees, that will be the time to consult with an orthopedic surgeon.” Then he added for emphasis, “That will be your decision.”

That was my meeting in October with Kenneth Zamkoff, M.D., oncologist. What did I learn? Frankly, very little that I didn’t already know, but I heard it from an expert in my particular disease, and I heard it without hedging or cant. That gave me a lot to digest.

For an overview of the various writing projects I am involved with, please see the website http://www.sasaftwrites.com. My latest book Murdoch McLoon And His Windmill Boat is available from the website http://www.Xlibris.com.

Copyright © 2008 by Stephen Alan Saft

QUESTIONS FOR THE DOCTORS, AT LAST I'M POSTING TO MIND CHECK AGAIN

The best evidence of how I have been doing since my bone marrow transplant of July 2008 is how long it has taken me to post a new contribution to Mind Check. The bone marrow transplant at Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem NC was July 8, and I have passed the three month anniversary. Look how unproductive I have been.

This bothers me. I have many writing projects pending, not just blog postings, and I hate being this inefficient. What is wrong with me? No new short poems. Minimal work on a new epic poem that I undertook to write before the bone marrow transplant. No progress on the editing of the galley proofs for the second book of poetry I committed to for this year. No activity on the projects in my archives. And no new posting for Mind Check.

Morning Motivation Then Dissipation

I have to admit that lately I’m seeing some improvements in the way I feel, particularly in the mornings, but I still don’t have the reserve of energy I was used to before I undertook the procedure. I wake in the morning, and for the first few minutes of the day I’m in the midst oif a frenzy of mental activity. I'm thinking of all the projects I could be working on, but then doubt shows its awful face. I'm wondering if I will have the motivation and the drive to plunge into these bigger challenges or if I am going to fall back on activities that are easier—like checking my email—but don’t give me the sense that I am moving my life forward?

After breakfast, the guessing game has sometimes transmuted into a confrontation with hard reality: No energy. I’m ready to climb back into bed. What happened to the energy I hoped I would have in those first few minutes after waking up? Where did it go? Did I eat the wrong combination of foods for breakfast or was it something I did the night before?

Afternoon Nap

Even if I do get something done in the morning, I can count on most afternoons being a wash out. I have lunch, and I’m ready for a nap. No need to climb into bed. Just sit me down in a chair, and I’ll soon be nodding off. I do have to acknowledge that feeling tired in the afternoon is not a phenomenon peculiar to the bone marrow transplant for me, but started happening before Harriet and I had made the move to Southwest Virginia and were still living in Arlington in Northern Virginia. Maybe it’s simply a byproduct of getting older.

At night, I usually experience a renewed spurt of energy, but it’s rare that I’m motivated to put that energy into writing anything. After a half hour of meditation using the practices of Eknath Easwaran of the Blue Mountain Center for Meditation, I’m ready to be entertained. Put me in front of the TV set and I’ll happily watch someone else’s creative work on a DVD. Lately, I have to admit, it has been hard to stay away from the TV news at night what with a national election campaign going on and with the country’s economy in virtual bankruptcy, the causes concealed by financial manipulators on Wall Street.


How Am I Walking

That’s an account of the ups and downs of my energy level during the course of a day, but what about the rest of me? What about all the other side effects that I brought home with me from the hospital? How, for example, am I walking these days? Better than when I first got home from the hospital, but outside of the house I still can’t do without a cane. I have a problem with my balance on uneven surfaces, and at night if no light illuminates the ground, I am probably going to fall whether I have a cane or not. I get disoriented if I can’t see the surface that I’m walking on. My knees are stiff, and sometimes they hurt. And they don’t seem to want to do what they are supposed to do during the walking process.

Then there’s the numbness in my fingers and my feet. In the morning when you’re getting dressed, try buttoning a shirt when your finger tips are numb. It’s not easy, and some buttons and button hole combinations are still impossible for me.

Hospital Testing Results

At this point I should reveal that about a week ago I had another series of tests at Baptist Hospital and a consultation with one of the oncologists. I came away from this session feeling disappointed. But first the good news. My blood counts for the key components of blood are in the normal range or rising and approaching normal.

Now the bad news. The CAT scan showed that the cancerous lymph node is still present. It’s smaller than it’s ever been since I first started dealing with Baptist Hospital over two years ago, and it may be the least active that it’s been. Only a PET scan would reveal activity, and I’m not sure when I’ll be allowed to have another PET scan. The point is that despite all that I’ve been through—all the chemo over a several month period including the awful BCNU or Carmustine just before the bone marrow transplant itself—the node is still with me.

The Questions

What does this mean? I’ve decided to put a series of questions to the bone marrow transplant team. I meet with them again on Oct. 20, and I would certainly appreciate having some answers by then. Here are my questions for the team:

1. What does the continued presence of the cancerous lymph node, albeit smaller in size, mean? Is this latest bone marrow transplant a failure because the node is still present? Have I wasted my time having a BMT? What?

2. How long before I may expect my lymphoma to affect any of my vital organs? Since the node is in the abdominal area, are the organs of that region the most likely candidates for attack? What would the likely treatment options be—radiation, chemotherapy, surgery?

3. Are my knees likely to improve on their own? If not, would it be advisable for me to have corrective knee surgery. I am not interested in going through another painful procedure like knee replacement if my long term prospects are not too promising. Why bother?

Let’s see how I do with these questions. I am prepared for a wide range of answers including “I don’t know.” Frankly, an honest “I don’t know” would be preferable to the kind of pronouncement we hear in most dramas about cancer victims. “ Well, Mr. Saft,” says the physician in his most earnest voice, “I’m sorry to tell you this, but you have just six months to live.”

Whatever they say, I will try to make the most of whatever time I have left. I don’t want to spend my time mired in regret and feeling sorry for myself. I still have a lot of work to do.

For an overview of my various writing projects I am involved with, please see the website http://www.sasaftwrites.com. My latest book Murdoch McLoon And His Windmill Boat is available from the website http://www.Xlibris.com.

Copyright © 2008 by Stephen Alan Saft

OBAMA NEEDS TO PUT HIS EMPHASIS ON THE STRUGGLING MIDDLE CLASS AND THE GROWTH OF POVERTY

The nomination of Barack Obama as president of the United States by the Democratic Party holds the promise of the breakthrough we need in this country to finally get over our long history of Jim Crow policies and attitudes. The problem for Barack Obama and for his running mate Joe Biden in the two months ahead before the election is that they probably can’t make too big a deal out of this fact, that is, if they want to win the election.

Yes, the nomination of Barack Obama is history making. The policies and attitudes of Jim Crow, that is, the portrayal of African Americans as inferior to whites and the corresponding practices focused on putting them down and keeping them down date back to the earliest days of slavery in this country.

Had Lincoln Not Been Assassinated

I often wonder if Abraham Lincoln had not been assassinated, that is, with the termination of the Civil War he had been alive to manage the initial phase of Reconstruction, if the outcome might have been different. I would like to think so. Instead the effects of Jim Crow including defacto Jim Crow in the North got steadily worse, that is, until the famous Brown Versus Board of Education case in 1954 that put an end to the notion of separate but equal in education. Then Martin Luther King and others who fought for equality and justice for all citizens in all phases of American life came to prominence.

African Americans have repeatedly made a name for themselves in sports and entertainment since the 1960s, and the hope is that as their visibility at the highest level of politics and other leadership positions becomes routine that racism, covert or overt, will no longer be a significant phenomenon of American life. The attitudes of the current generation of young people, that is, people under 40, point us in that direction.

Hillary Clinton: “Awfully Hard To Win”

Meanwhile it is Barack Obama and his wife Michele who are leading the way. That said, to truly make a difference Barack Obama has to get himself elected. Otherwise as a defeated nominee he’ll be a sentence or two in some future American history books and the promise will not be fulfilled. We’ll remember him as we remember Bob Dole or George Dukakis or Walter Mondale or John Kerry except with a tad more awe and a tad more regret as we think about what might have been—the first African American to have received a major party nomination, but, we’ll have to add, he couldn’t pull it off. He lost!

And let’s not forget what Hillary Clinton has been telling us throughout her run for the presidency. “It is awfully hard to win a general election,” she has said. Any notion that Obama will have an easy time achieving victory has to be put out of mind immediately.

Shift Focus To The Poor, White or Black

How does he avoid that fate? How does he go from nominee to the next president of the United States? How does he get himself elected? Peter Beinart, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, as published in a recent issue of The Washington Post (The Washington Post National Weekly Edition, August 18-24, 2008, page 30) makes the point that if race becomes too strong an issue in the Obama-McCain campaign—and that is already threatening to happen--it will not work in Obama’s favor.

On the other hand, he says, too much has already been made of race in this campaign for Obama to pretend that it is playing no role in voters’ decisions. Rather Beinart argues that Obama “needs to control the race debate instead.”

Take On Sensitive Affirmative Action Issue

How does he do that? By switching the debate from race to class, that’s how, says Peter Beinart. By taking on the sensitive issue of affirmative action and even acknowledging that the benefits of affirmative action are no longer necessary for upper middle class and upper class blacks—at the same time, by switching the focus to the poor, and I need to add, by putting the spotlight on the struggling middle class.

This is how Beinart puts it. “Over the decades, racial preferences have played a vital role in creating a black middle class, but that middle class is now large and self-perpetuating. It is the multi-generational poor---whether urban and black or Appalachian and white—who truly need a boost today. And that’s what Obama himself seems to believe.”

Too Much Poverty

The immense challenge, however, is whether Obama and Biden can get this point across to working class or blue color white families in the key border states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and parts of western Virginia so that they’ll overlook the race issue and other negative attitudes long entrenched in some of their communities and cast their vote for him? If he can’t get enough of their votes, he is not likely to win. That’s what John Kerry found out in 2004.

There is no doubt that right now we are watching history being made in this country, but Obama and Biden can’t spend too much time talking about it. They’ll have to leave that job to the commentators from our ubiquitous media and to the historians in their books. The job of Obama and Biden is winning an election. The middle class of all races and ethnic backgrounds in this country are struggling right now. The income spread between rich and poor is widening at an enormous rate, and we have far too much poverty for a nation that is supposed to be rich. That’s where the emphasis has got to be.

Thanks for tuning into Mind Check. For a look at my other writing, see the website http://www.sasaftwrites.com. Please note that my latest book, Murdoch McLoon And His Windmill Boat, is now available. You’ll learn more about it at the sasaftwrites website.

Copyright © 2008 by Stephen Alan Saft