Waiting

My wife, Linda, is out of the hospital and feeling much better every day.  The T cells taken from her and genetically modified to seek out and kill her lymphoma seem to be doing their job.  Her hair has gone AWOL for the third time in three years but she knows it's a small price to pay if this regimen works. The lymph glands in her neck have nearly returned to normal, her skin tone is far better and food is beginning to appeal once again.  These are all positive signs that this yet to be FDA approved procedure is the real deal.  Now we wait.

Other than blood tests every few days at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance there is little for us to do as we wait for another two weeks to pass.  The doctors who are the heart and soul of this new treatment have determined that it takes approximately one month to say with certainty that a CAR T cell patient has put their cancer in remission.  A petscan and bone marrow test will provide the report card.  Linda has fourteen days to go.  If her cancer has been defeated we go home.  If not, we go home and maybe come back in a couple of months to try again.  At this point, with only about 180 subjects having participated, the program has roughly an 80% success rate.  If this is sustained, it will be considered a major breakthrough in cancer treatment.  Both of us are excited, yet nervous, to be a part of what may well be substantial medical history.  Mostly we just want to get on with our lives.

This is dicey business.  Two days ago the leukemia section of the program was shut down after two patients died.  The lymphoma study continues as it involves entirely different gene modification and has produced more successful outcomes.  Nonetheless, this is all a delicate tap dance that may yet experience some unforeseen trips and falls.  We simply hope and pray that Linda is ready to dance her way into a cancer free life.  She is excited to be among the 80%.

Making Way For A Junior Reporter

With my wife in the hospital this blog has suffered from neglect.

Daughter Katie has been in Seattle helping me with all things necessary for her mom's recovery.  She left today to return to San Diego and her husband Doug and seven year-old son, Dan.  They have missed her tremendously but have been more than understanding through it all.   As a consequence of her absence Katie missed Dan's "Back to School Night" report created to edify us all about bugs.  Because of this I thought it only appropriate to publish it here as a show of appreciation.  Call me a prejudiced grandpa but I think this puts him on track for a job at 60 Minutes or 48 Hours.

Here it is...

Dan pauses to refresh himself  using a straw that doubles as glasses.

Like Gingko Biloba

The ginko biloba tree in Autumn

We both joked about it.  What else can you do?

They removed the tap from my wife's neck on Tuesday.  The Mahurkar hemodialysis catheter installed to grab the hardiest of her T cells was reminiscent of the spikes pounded into Michigan sugar maples in the springtime of my youth.  It was no fun to look at and miserable for her to wear during the four days required to do the job.  Our grandson thought it was cool and wanted something similar for his Halloween costume.  He's seven and hasn't a clue.  The contraption did what it was designed to do and now Linda's T cells are in a lab at the Hutchinson Cancer Center being genetically modified to attack the blood cancer that is trying to kill her.

After nearly four months here last year for a stem cell transplant, neither of us was ready to reprise an extended stay in the Emerald City for yet another campaign against this insidious large B cell lymphoma raging inside my wife's body.  Yet, here we are.  Daily we are thankful for the unwavering support of faithful friends and family.  We also count ourselves lucky to be retired and comfortable enough to withstand the obvious financial strains of this battle.  Daily we see others who have young children and jobs to worry about and are amazed that they persevere.

 Magnificent ginkgo biloba trees, now golden in Autumn, line Aloha street for the block we walk from our hotel to Seattle Cancer Care Alliance each day.  A Google search of these beauties offers the information that they are some of nature's hardiest and disease resistant deciduous trees;  the only plant life to survive 1945's atomic bombing of Hiroshima.  Their presence here is obviously no accident.

The pleasant distraction of a World Series lifts our spirits.  We both love the game of baseball and are delighted to find the Cubs flirting with the chance to win it all for the first time in our 68 years of life and, like all Cub fans, hope and pray that 2016 truly is the year of miracles.

The ginkgo biloba endures

Taking a Cruise

That's what we've decided to call it.  A "cruise" sounds a ton better than going back to the hospital, but that's where we're headed.  

Linda's cancer returned in August and has proven itself both resilient and deceptive.  Even after last year's stem cell transplant the lymphoma that has tried to mess with her for the past three years keeps coming back for more.  This ugly bastard should have talked to me.  This woman is the definition of relentless and indefatigable!  For forty-eight years she has put up with my seemingly inexhaustible supply of bullshit and won't quit until I've been fixed.  (Those who know me realize this is a fool's errand that demands at least another fifty years.  Please don't tell her.)

Beginning next week we return to Seattle Cancer Care Alliance where Linda will be a patient in their CAR-T cell program.  It is a new form of therapy involving the body's immune system that you're welcome to Google for a more detailed explanation.  Simply put, it is a program that withdraws T cells from the body and "re-educates" them to attack cancer cells.  It's very new but so far has proven quite successful in fighting leukemia, so much so that doctors feel comfortable in its ability to be equally effective on lymphoma, especially the large B cell variety that has chosen to go after Linda.  We have high hopes.

It dawned on me a couple of weeks back that what began as a feeble attempt to sweep some of the snakes from the attic of my mind--this blog--has gone on for nearly ten years.  When radio jobs went away there was no place to go with this nonsense except right here.  The web was free and it stopped me from talking to myself in the driveway for four hours every morning.  Actually, I would have kept on doing that but the neighbors called the cops.  So here I am.  Just about the time I think I should quit inflicting this on the unsuspecting I hear from an old friend or former radio reprobate reminding me of a tale or two that can now stand the light of day and I decide to just keep typing.  So, for now, I will.  I'll try to be diligent in filing these usually light-hearted ramblings during the next few weeks but, if they become sporadic, you'll know it's only because we're on a cruise.

Linda resting and wishing I wasn't taking her picture during a recent walk..

I'm My Own Grandpa

The country comedy team of Homer & Jethro recorded a novelty ditty entitled "I'm My Own Grandpa" that has been rattling around my aging gourd lately.  I'm fairly certain it's because I have been finding myself slipping into codger speak a little more every day.  You know, stuff like: "I remember when Halloween pumpkins were 10, 25 and 50 cents; not EIGHT BUCKS!"  "Damn kids are playing that rap crap again!"  And, of course, my wife's favorite:  "How come they're hiring high schools kids as television news anchors?"

Going grocery shopping is excruciating for me.  Working as a bag boy for Oscar "The Watermelon King" Swanson at Swanson's Super Store during my high school days in the early 1960's left that era's prices etched forever in my mind.  The other carry out guys and I used to be able to come within a few cents of a customer's final bill just by eyeing their baskets as they pulled up to the check stand.  A $50 order would fill a typical grocery cart to overflowing and someone spending $100 invariably had at least two carts and required two of us to help them to their car.  These days, when forced to hit the supermarket, I look at what I have to purchase and simply give it a multiple of ten to estimate how bad the hit will be.  The same formula works for cars too.  A ride that was $5000 in the 60's is easily $50k today.  Houses need at least a ten multiple to make the price leap from the 60's to today.  Whoda thunk??

What got me thinking about all this was a recent study an expert on aging, Dr. Jan Vijg of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, who says that 115 years of age is just about the maximum limit of human longevity.  Of course some folks have exceeded that but Dr. Vijg seems to think that after 115 we're all pretty much competing with cabbages when it comes to being useful.  I tend to agree, although it could be a real challenge to see if my heart could absorb the amount of change and inflation a person would have to contend with to make it that far.  And, isn't that maybe why we are allowed the fairly standard three score and ten years most of us are dealt?  How much change is good for you?  Shouldn't there be some benchmarks that are immune to change?

Mark Twain said, "The two most important days in life are the day you are born and the day you discover the reason why."  Possibly it takes some of us as much as 115 years to come up with the why.

Now, what was I talking about?
Eight bucks for a pumpkin?!!
Now, when I was a lad that pumpkin would have been 50 cents and the farmer would have given you a ride home!

Bumping Into Ben

"Hey buddy, it's me Gentle Ben!"

While walking in the woods of north Idaho one day last week I chanced upon an old friend.  I nearly didn't recognize him as, like me, he has aged considerably but it was TV's Gentle Ben.  You remember the series don't you?  It was a big hit in the 1960's and featured Ben as the big furry pal of a boy named Mark played by Clint Howard.  The show was shot on location in the Florida Everglades.

"Ben", I said.  "What's up pal?  What a  nice surprise that you're also a denizen of the Idaho panhandle."

Ben & Clint 

HERE IS THE TRANSCRIPT OF OUR CONVERSATION:

GB:  Good to see you too Buddy!  Remember the time we got wasted at Sweet Lou's oyster bar in Tampa?

KC:  Things are a little hazy but I do seem to recall you trashing the place.

GB:  Good times!  It was a real bitch working Florida in a fur coat.  Sort of like working on the surface of the sun,  but I survived.  Rides on the air boat saved me.

KC:  Yeah, this Idaho north woods weather has got to be way better for you.

GB:  Between sweating it out in the Glades and that little pain in the ursine ass, Clint Howard, I couldn't wait for that show to get canceled.  By the way...is there another kid in the history of Hollywood who went from cute to gap-toothed goober faster than the Howard kid?!  Holy crap!  Talk about "the prince formerly known as charming".

KC:  His brother, Ron, always manages to squeeze his mug into every movie he produces just so old Clint can keep getting residuals.  

Clint Howard, from cute to ugly in record time

GB:  It wasn't so easy for me after the series ended.  I wound up working in the circus and hating every minute of it.  Riding the bike, juggling, and all that bear shtick depressed me no end.  I wound up hitting the mead pretty hard and eventually couldn't stay on the bike or  do any damn juggling without knocking myself out.  It was brutal man.  They canned me and the wife ran off with Jo Jo The Dog Faced Boy.  

I don't like to talk about it.

KC:  Well, you're here now and I trust things are on a more even keel.

GB:  Yeah, pretty much.  Although the debate the other night was a bummer.  Geez, can you believe we're down to an orange manatee shaped loon and some old bag who looks like every guy's idea of A LONG DAY?

KC:  Like George Carlin always said:  "The world is a freak show and if you're an American you have a front row seat."

GB: Bingo!

KC:  So, who are you gonna vote for?

GB:  Well, between the humorless, mendacious harridan and the overweight circus act, I'll go with Shakes the Clown every time.  The Hildabeast reminds me of my ex old lady.
By the way...which way to the lake?  I'm really getting sick of huckleberries and am jonesing for some bass.

KC:  The pike are hitting at the mouth of the river and the trout, perch and kokanee are fatter than ever this year.  Northwest sushi at its finest!

GB:  Thanks pal.  Mind if I take your Wall Street Journal with me?  I've got some business to attend to before exiting the woods.

KC: Be my guest.  Catch you later.



And, with that, he was off, older, wiser and certainly cooler than the average bear.

Senior Moments

Corbin Point on Lake Coeur D' Alene

Willard Spiegelman, a professor of English at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, has written a new book called: Senior Moments , looking back, looking ahead.  It's a thoughtful reflection on growing older that has a lot to recommend to those of us who have reached, or are about to reach, our  biblical three score and ten years of life.  If you qualify, there is much that will have you nodding your head.

An observation that particularly resonated with Linda and me was this:  "Here is a formula for staying young well beyond the days of youth:  Grow old in a place where you do not think you belong.  You will feel like an adolescent, because adolescents always consider themselves outsiders.  Then, after decades, just as you have gradually habituated yourself to your surroundings, pack up and leave.  It is time for another, perhaps the final, beginning."

Wow!  Are you kidding me?  We were actually being SMART when we left our comfort zone in Southern California for the wilds of the Idaho panhandle two years ago?  We thought we just had tired of all the traffic, liberal politicians, taxes and  an ever pressing need to learn Spanish.  Instead we were helping ourselves return to our adolescence, though most who know me will contend I have never come close to even flirting with responsible maturity.

It's true we had stayed much longer in the San Diego area than was customary for a couple who had moved seventeen times in nearly forty-eight years of marriage, but it's easy to get comfortable when the sun shines and the temperature seldom dips or soars out of the 70's.  Nonetheless, move we did and have never looked back.

Originally our plan was to travel during the cooler months and stick close to home the rest of the year but Linda's cancer battle has kept us in Coeur d' Alene year round lately and that has been good.  We've learned more of the history of the area and made new friends because we stayed put.  Of course, we miss old friends and family but have been lucky enough to have had many visitors.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that if you're thinking of a change of scenery once you've made up your mind to enjoy doing all the fun things you've been putting off because you had to show up for work, it may be time to consider professor Spiegelman's advice and head for a place "you do not belong".  After all, it may be later than you think.

A patriotic sailboat on July 4th

Sightseeing tour boat

Boardwalk Marina, Lake Coeur D' Alene