Breast cancer touches my family

A few weeks ago, my mother, who is 81 years old, was diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer. Fortunately, at this early stage, it is entirely curable, and today she had outpatient lumpectomy surgery to remove the tumor. She is home as I write this, resting comfortably and in good spirits. There is no involvement of the lymph nodes so she'll be just fine, and only needs some precautionary radiation treatment post-surgery. I've known so many female friends who've gone through various stages of breast cancer and treatment that it's scary how many folk I know who have been touched by this disease, but I never thought that it would touch my own immediate family, so I have never bothered to get a mammogram, figuring that such things are really only necessary if you have a family history. Well....now that we do, I'm not going to waste any more time and when I see my primary care doctor in a few weeks for a regular check up, I am going to make a point to schedule a mammogram. However, if, God forbid, they find something they don't like, my insurance won't pay for any surgery or treatment, so.....I kind of wonder what the point is of having to go through all of this when I have insurance that, while it will pay for the mammography, will not pay for surgery or treatment. It kind of defeats the entire purpose of doing any kind of preventive care if your insurance won't pay for necessary treatments should things be found that are out of order. I just hope that President Obama (God, how I love the sound of that!) can get Congress to work with him on comprehensive health care reform, and I don't mean nickel and dime stuff, I mean real, true, universal health care with no deductibles or co-pays to bankrupt us. I know that he's in for the fight of his life, but this issue means even more to me since cancer has so recently visited itself on my family (I also have a first cousin, Terry, who is battling recurrent malignant glioma, a nasty brain cancer). I pray that our leaders can see just how important health care reform is to our national financial recovery. The two go hand in hand and I think that President Obama gets it. No one who is diagnosed with cancer should have to worry about how to pay for the treatments. No one who undergoes cancer treatment should have to go into catastrophic debt as a result like my friend Karen, recovering herself from a bout of breast cancer that threw her $10,000 in debt - and that's what insurance did not cover. She said that the total cost of treatment was over $40,000 but she was left with $10,000 in debt as a result of going through surgery, chemo and radiation - after what her insurance paid! That's just so not right, if you want my opinion. She survived her breast cancer, but now she's left with a whopping debt that will cut into her earnings and take years to pay off. No one should have to face that kind of situation, especially when a life threatening illness hits. I just hope that when I have my first mammogram that it comes up clean, because right now, I am in no position to incur any more medical debt than I have already managed to run up, and that will take me a long, long time to pay down. I just can't afford any more medical treatment on anything for the foreseeable future.

OH, MY ACHING KNEE!
Two years ago, I had an MRI on my left knee that has been a constant problem for some time now. It showed very clear evidence of osteoarthritis, no huge surprise given the issues I've had with it for so long now. For two years, I've been in and out of physical therapy for a variety of problems, mostly knee related (but I also had rehab on my tennis elbow afflicted right arm, my tendinitis afflicted right Achilles tendon and my left index finger post-surgery to regain range of motion). I just finished yet another round of PT not long ago, but now my knee feels worse than ever. It's possible that it's just the result of not having followed through with the home PT regimen and I know that I really need to get to it and start doing it again. It's tough when you don't have access to the same kind of equipment that they have at PT and have to improvise with what you have around the house. I may buy two things they use in PT - a "ProStretch" device that stretches your hamstrings and Achilles and a StretchOut strap, which allows you to do various stretches that they've assigned me to do as part of my home regimen. You can buy both of these together through Amazon.com for under $50 and it seems worth it to me to own a few pieces of PT equipment that will serve as motivation to do my home care regimen, which I am told I have to do forever, not just temporarily, given the length discrepancy between my two legs (a whopping 1½"). For now, though, the pain and in particular the stiffness are driving me crazy. I've been considering testing glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate, which I hear works for painful joints. I bought some topical glucosamine/chondroitin today and plan on testing that for a few weeks to see how that works at relieving my pain and stiffness. It says to use it twice a day and it will take a few weeks to feel any results, but I'm willing to see if the topical stuff works before testing the oral kind. I'm just tired of hurting all the time, as I am nearing my 52nd birthday this spring and am too young to be having to deal with this kind of arthritis pain. It depresses the hell out of me because it slows me down and prevents me from being able to do certain things that I like to do, so I am going to do whatever it takes to stop it in its tracks, because I cannot afford any more medical treatments on it and will have to resort to whatever methods I can come up with on my own to cope with it, at least until we in this country finally have universal health care (something I'm not optimistic will happen anytime soon). Maybe then I can finally have the surgery that I probably need to fix this bum knee once and for all, if that's what it will take to make it better. My doctor doesn't think it needs it right now, but sooner or later, it may just come to the point of needing it. Until then....I'm doing whatever I can to relieve the pain and stiffness on my own.

And the winners are.....

"Slumdog Millionaire" won big at the Oscars last night, taking home eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Kate Winslet won for Best Actress for her role in the film "The Reader", Sean Penn won Best Actor for his role in the film biopic "Milk", Penelope Cruz won Best Supporting Actress for her role in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona", and perhaps the most sad of all, the late, great Heath Ledger won Best Supporting Actor for his role in "The Dark Knight". The Academy will hold his statuette in trust until his daughter Matilda turns 18. I haven't seen any of these films so I cannot comment on any of them, but I do intend to try to catch up when they come out on DVD. I know that my mom really loved "Slumdog Millionaire" and it does sound like a wonderful and deserving film. I am still deeply saddened by the death of Heath Ledger who was such a promising young actor who left us too soon. I loved him in all the movies I saw him in and I hope that he will be well remembered for being a talent who had such brilliant promise for a career that would certainly have gone nowhere but up. I couldn't bring myself to see "The Dark Knight" knowing that it was his final legacy. I figured it'd just make me too sad to know that this was the last we'd ever see of his magnificent talent. Maybe someday I'll see it, but then, I'm not much into comic book superheroes as it is. Sure, I grew up watching the old Batman series on TV that was on in the mid-1960's and I loved it, but I was a kid then who loved that sort of thing. I find the comic book superhero films of today to be a bit puzzling, but given what they can do with computerized special effects, I suppose that those kinds of movies do appeal to a certain demographic that doesn't include us middle aged folks! At any rate, I do need to catch up with some of these movies, as I do want to see many of the ones that won Oscars last night. In particular, I'd love to see "Milk", as I have become a fan of Sean Penn, who, it seems to me, has been a long underappreciated talent who should now be taken very seriously as a real heavyweight. His career will undoubtedly take off as a result of this award. And I do love Kate Winslet as well and hope to see her Oscar winning role in "The Reader" as soon as I can get it on DVD.

THE ROAR OF THE CROWD

On Friday evening, my mom and I went to see a musical version of "Jane Eyre" at E. Turner Stump Theatre at Kent State. I graduated with a theatre degree from there in 1979 and spent many an evening at Stump Theatre doing various plays during my time there. I hadn't been back in that theatre for many long years, and walking back into that place where I spent so much of my college years brought back very fond memories of the plays in which I was involved. I felt a pang of nostalgia for those days when opening night was such an exciting venture. This play we went to see was an opening night production and I remember how it felt to arrive in the green room, dress in costume, put on makeup and mentally prepare for the big moment when the curtains would part and the play would begin in front of a full audience. You are, at that point, so much in the moment. A play is an ephemeral thing, and once done, it's over, only to be recalled in memory. I remembered that feeling, that you had either a really good night where everything clicked, or you had a bad night where things went wrong. Mostly, things went smoothly, thanks to very professional direction from one of our professors.

As for this production of "Jane Eyre", well, it wasn't the best play I've ever seen, but I found myself feeling a pang of envy that the school of Theatre can do these kinds of elaborate productions that we could not do in the 70's when I was there. They have merged with the school of Dance, so they can call on those talents and they have coordinated with the music school, who they share a building with, to be able to put on really amazing musicals with lots of dance included as well. We couldn't do that when I was a student. Oh, we did some amazing plays during my tenure there, but not nearly what they can do now. How things have changed since my days there. The theatre seats have been completely redone and the theatre itself seems to have undergone a bit of a makeover as well. It's so much more high tech than it was 30 years ago when I was a student. I found myself envious and missing the excitement of those long ago days, but alas, that was another time and I don't have nearly the time or energy required to do theatrical productions now. So I leave it to the younger crowd to keep entertaining us with their well done productions. It's so nice to live in a college town that has so many cultural offerings like we do!

Does anybody read anymore?

Times were, our collection at the library was weeded, at most, twice a year, but it seems that lately, weeding is becoming a weekly practice. Particularly hard hit is the adult non-fiction, with dozens of books becoming regular casualties of lack of reading on the part of our patrons. When I have protested how many books are being discarded of late, the word back that I have gotten is, "Well, no one reads that stuff anymore anyway.....". It's very disconcerting that this is the case. Our library's budget is going to be cut by a half million dollars this year due to state budget shortfalls, so it's not like we're going to replace the books we discard, and if we do any replacement of materials, it will be DVD's and CD's, since you can buy two or three of them for the cost of every book, so it's considered far more economical to buy audio visual material over printed material. People don't want to take the time to read books anymore because patrons tell me it's far too mentally taxing and time consuming, but in the time it takes to perch their butts in front of a TV set for hour upon hour watching movies they could be reading a good book. Unfortunately, the printed word seems to be headed for extinction, sooner rather than later. At the rate we're losing our book collection, there won't be much left of it before long, and that's very sad, when you think that we're discarding books that are less than a year old on which we spent $20-$30 or more per title. It's enough to make me want to take home books that I know are going to be discarded that I want to read. In particular, our biography section is being gradually whittled down to a mere few titles, and that's a pity, because there are lots of really good and recent biographies that I would personally love to read, but our patrons are eschewing them in favor of audio visual substitutes. I foresee a day when we'll, at most, maybe carry a few dozen biographies in our collection at most, because we're not replacing our books anymore with newer ones. It saddens me a great deal to see the decline of the book as a medium, because I can't see curling up in front of a computer or a Palm Pilot to read a book or listening to it on CD. It just isn't the same. But e-books and Books on CD are rapidly becoming the way that information and entertainment is dispensed, so....the book is on its gradual route to becoming a dodo, forever extinct. How very sad for someone like me who grew up a book lover to see libraries gradually ceasing to be the repositories of books and instead becoming multi-media entertainment centers. Sign o' the times, I guess. Pity what kind of society we're becoming when the written word is allowed to become an endangered species.

SPEAKING OF BOOKS
I am currently reading "A. Lincoln: A Biography" by Ronald C. White, Jr. It is an excellent book that seems mostly to focus on how Lincoln developed his moral grounding despite his relative lack of formal education. I'm probably about a third of the way through it, so I can't really write a review of it yet, but I would highly recommend it nonetheless based on what I have read so far. This book came into the library where I work and I immediately snagged it for a February read, since this month marks the bicentennial anniversary of Lincoln's birth. I am also intrigued at how President Obama seems to have derived a lot of his inspiration from Lincoln, since they both hail from Illinois, so in a way, I am reading this to get a better picture of how Obama thinks. I have had a lifelong fascination with Lincoln as it is and this book makes a welcome addition to the many books written about him. This year, I am sure, will see a bumper crop of Lincoln books to mark the bicentennial of his birth, so I am expecting that we'll get in a few of them, which this time next year will doubtless end up in the discard pile, this one included, since people aren't reading anymore. When libraries cease to buy books, the publishing industry has got to feel the pinch. Even bookstores like Borders are feeling the sharp effects of the economic downturn lately, since books tend to be expensive and people are turning more and more to the library to get the books they want to read, if they read at all. I hope that they take the time to read some of the newer books on Lincoln, as they doubtless have newer information and research about this fascinating man. That is another reason that I wanted to read this book - any new information that has previously been undiscovered would be in a newer volume like this. Most of us know the barest facts (and myths) about Lincoln from our school days, but it's interesting to get a more human picture and a better take on just who he was. A complicated man, to be sure, but someone with an obvious deep moral grounding that makes him one of history's more interesting characters to read about. One thing I found particularly fascinating was that one of his original ancestors, Samuel Lincoln, helped to build and worshipped at Old Ship Unitarian Church in Hingham, MA. I always suspected that Lincoln had some Unitarian roots in there somewhere, as he never really seemed to take to any formal religion, despite his regular reading of the Bible. He did attend church on occasion but never professed any one faith, a very Unitarian thing to do. In his day, his lack of formal religiosity did prove controversial, because even then, politicians were expected to be good Christians and church goers, something that seems to persist even to this day despite the supposed separation of church and state. So if you're looking for a good read about Lincoln, and if, like me, you still like to sit on the sofa and hold a hard copy book and read it, then this book comes highly recommended from me. And please - go to your public library and start checking out some books, because the less we as a people read, the more the written word will become extinct in our time. And that would prove to be a shame if books became the stuff of the past and museums instead of in today's libraries.

President Obama

Nearly two weeks ago, a new era in American history began with the inauguration of President Barack Obama. I made a point of taking the day off to watch the entire television coverage and it was deeply moving to hear the roar of approval from the crowd when Obama took the oath and gave his inaugural speech. The television coverage lasted nearly all day and the parade went until well after darkness fell. I couldn't stay to watch the parade in its entirety because I had to go to my women's fitness class, but still, I did get to watch enough of it to get the sense of the history being made that day. I still have to pinch myself whenever I hear "President Obama" mentioned in news coverage, but still, it's a mighty good feeling to know that we're in good hands that will surely be able to guide us through this financial mess we're in. I know it's not going to happen in weeks or months, and I hope that people understand that and give the President some time to get things going through Congress. Still, things seem to be off to a promising start and although we've been warned that things are going to get worse before they get better, still, there is reason to hope that somewhere, there's a light at the end of the tunnel.
My father, who was a sociology professor before his untimely death in 1961, specialized in race relations and I have come to find out that he'd be very proud of the inauguration of President Obama. Apparently, Daddy was at the forefront of fighting for civil rights before it was even an issue. Back when he was a professor at Baldwin Wallace College in Berea, OH (where I was born in 1957), some black students came to him telling him that they'd been denied access to a skating rink, which claimed it was for members only. Daddy apparently led a group of black and white students to the rink and demanded an explanation as to why some supposed "non-members" were allowed to be skating (they were all white). Well, this confrontation, it would seem, made the front page of the newspaper and infuriated the President of Baldwin Wallace, thereby ensuring that Daddy would be denied tenure there. So my family left Berea for Kent where my father took a teaching position at Kent State University, his undergraduate alma mater. Once again, my father enjoined the civil rights cause when it was discovered that some approved off-campus housing was denying blacks the right to live there, and of course, he stood up for them. He and some other young professors wrote a letter to the campus newspaper, which of course, infuriated the President of the University. I don't know if this would have led to a denial of tenure had Daddy lived long enough to earn it, but still, it makes me feel so proud to know that my father stood up for civil rights before it was even a major issue in this country. His experience in WWII apparently opened his eyes to segregation and gave him the impetus to make race relations his life's work. At times, I do feel very bereft for not having had him around while growing up, especially the more I learn about him, but I know what a good man he was and would have been had he lived long enough to raise the four of us kids.

ANOTHER BIG SNOW
Last Wednesday, another big snow storm rumbled through our area, dumping nearly a foot of new snow on top of the nearly one foot that fell a few weeks ago and hasn't melted yet. It made for real hassles trying to dig out from still more snow on top of snow. Fortunately, we got out of work early that day so I was able to get home without too many problems. Still, my car was in the shop for repairs and I was driving a rental SUV which admittedly made me feel very safe. I can easily see the appeal of these large vehicles and what makes them so very popular and desirable. Upon getting home, I could not park in either my driveway or the abandoned gas station next door because of how much snow we had gotten, so I was forced to park in the street, knowing full well that there was a parking ban on, but I had no choice but to park the SUV where I could. I immediately called the man who does my shoveling for me and he said it would take an hour to get over to my place because he was busy shoveling himself out. By the time he got over to my house, I was falling asleep on the sofa reading and he came up to my apartment and told me I'd better move my car because the police were out ticketing and towing cars so our street could get cleared. I threw on my coat and boots and raced out to find a tow truck backing up to the rental SUV, even though Earl, my snow shovel guy, had told them he knew whose vehicle it was and he'd go and get me and tell me to move it immediately, which I did. Even though I did not get towed, I still had to pay for a tow (cash only, and I had to give the tow truck guy all of my cash just to convince him not to tow me) and I got a ticket even Earl told them that he'd go and get me and tell me to move my car. I went down to the police station enraged and told them I refused to pay the ticket because they were told that I was home and would move my car immediately, but they weren't in a listening mood. I filed an appeal on the ticket but I suspect I'll still have to pay it anyway, and the tow truck guy treated me like dirt because, as it turns out, he hates our street and he hates college students. Well, my silver hair should convince him that I am not some careless college kid who ignored the rules. I pleaded that I had nowhere else to park because I got stuck both in the gas station and my driveway, but they didn't care, so I guess I'm out the cost of the tow and the ticket. I told them that I have always been the one to complain about lack of plowing and other city services on our street. Apparently, this time, they didn't wait for me to call but decided to take a tough stance and lower the boom on everyone on our street, regardless. Well, I have my little subcompact car back and I should be able to get it in and out of our driveway now, just in case we have another big snowstorm, and one is predicted to be moving into our area tonight and into tomorrow, so.....we may not be out of this heavy snow anytime soon. Oh, how I wish winter would just END already!