So, yes, I am well progressed on this unpleasant journey. There are no guarantees and this is not the only current journey in my life without any guarantees. In the "good old days" one walked up to the counter, paid the price, and walked away with reward in hand. No more. These days my career is medical procedures. Is it even worth it?
Long ago, in April of 2007 I became anemic, so I made an appointment with my doctor (scheduled four days later) and continued with my daily routines, work and all, until the day arrived. I was very weak, a condition I noticed after I had to lie down between taking my morning shower and getting dressed for the day. When I went upstairs I had to rest after the first flight of eight steps to catch my breath. When they told me that they could not see me until Wednesday morning I was a little skeptical about whether I would make it that long. "We will see", I told myself. Time went by. Wednesday arrived.
Everyone always wants me to go to the emergency room for this kind of thing. I am not so enthusiastic about the overblown expense and massive bureaucracy at the emergency room. I have another bureaucratic technique that I use sometimes when I think something is important and it is currently regular office hours. I show up in the doctor's office, inform them I am there, and ask them to "work me in". "Anytime in the next four hours will be just fine," I say. They urge me to go to the emergency room. I am so pleasant when I decline and seat myself to wait. Four hours is the same time it would take the emergency room to get to me. My doctor makes room for me much sooner.
In this case I was only feeling very very weak. I could feel the constant disco beat of my heart at 120 bps. Since then I know that is not unusual for me. I have well exceeded that with wildly irregular blood pressure and pulse rates during chemotherapy. (Their penalty is "hydration", which takes takes time and pushes the symptoms from one extreme to the other.)
Back in 2007, my doctor's blood tests came up on the low side, actually way on the low side, but there was a problem reaching the stomach doctor's office. I got in my car and continued onward to work. Just as well. My own doctor would have called an ambulance. Later that morning an assistant called me all but gasping with urgency. She instructed me to immediately call an ambulance, go to the hospital, and check myself into ICU.
That seemed silly to me since I had been driving myself everywhere for most of a week already. I got in the elevator and trudged out to the car at the other end of the parking lot. I drove to the hospital and finally found a parking spot. I trudged into admitting and announced my presence. They hustled me into a wheel chair and took me to ICU. I changed into uniform and sat in the bed while they hooked me up to all kinds of paraphernalia. Then they started the transfusions, one after another.
So now, eleven years later, my stomach is twitchy and my scar is itchy. It does not want for me to forget its suffering from the past. It does not like the chemo. My future is murky and I find myself wondering what my particular symptoms will be in the event of metastatic cancer? I speculate about what arrangements I should make for my family? Pointless speculation. I have made sensible arrangements already, years ago.
My mother always said that I was too sensitive. There are countless ways to be sensitive. One can have one's sense of justice outraged, either for oneself or for the helpless and vulnerable of the world. Fortunately, physical pain is not one of my great sensitivities, at least so says 23andme, and my experiences support that. I fear pain and I have experienced great pain, as in sciatica. That is the worst. I just know that I can find my way through it.
I am focused on some new projects this spring. I wonder about the cost/benefit equation for having these kinds of procedures done. My oncologist talks about another patient that is willing to be intubated, again, anything, so long as she can cling to life for another day or week. I will not be doing that. Aside from the suffering I would undergo, I will not inflict that suffering on those around me.
Monday, December 3, 2018
Sunday, November 11, 2018
Bible Thumpers
What does it mean if you find commercials in your messages from God? Is it worrisome if you find that you hold exactly the same point of view on a number of topics as a large number of other people? Do you worry that you have become a "ditto-head", or do you take pride in it?
My father was an early graduate of the Navy Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Attendance at this school was a long deployment of three years so my mother started looking around to complete her social life by attending a local church. She had always attended the Congregational Church in her hometown of Hopkinton, Massachusetts so it was natural for her to choose the same denomination in Monterey.
She dressed up for church and showed up, only to find that she was lacking. At the start of the service all the members of the church were asked to hold up their bibles as a testament to their faith. Somehow, that had never been a part of what my mother always carried when she went to church, so she felt shamed and unwelcome. She never went back. She would sometimes refer to "bible thumpers" with disgust, at least for the first decade or so after that.
We lived in many places after that and every new home was accompanied by a search for a suitable church. When I was in high school I participated in those searches and she would accommodate my preferences, perhaps in hopes that I would continue to attend church with her after everyone else in the family had long since made it too unpleasant for her to force them to continue. We considered such important criteria as the quality of the music/choir, the comfort of the pews, and the level of inspiration of the sermons. Out of such things eventually is constructed deep and abiding faith - perhaps even rabid faith such as drove my mother away from that church in Monterey so many years before.
At the end of her life my mother would have been perfectly at home attending that church, forgiving their arrogance and their fetishes, dishing out love where there was pettiness. Church was always very important to her but I think sometimes that she was the true believer in those crowds, masquerading as an ordinary congregant. There, I will be arrogant about her faith where she could never be.
My father was an early graduate of the Navy Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Attendance at this school was a long deployment of three years so my mother started looking around to complete her social life by attending a local church. She had always attended the Congregational Church in her hometown of Hopkinton, Massachusetts so it was natural for her to choose the same denomination in Monterey.
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| Herrmann Hall - U.S.. Naval Postgraduate School |
She dressed up for church and showed up, only to find that she was lacking. At the start of the service all the members of the church were asked to hold up their bibles as a testament to their faith. Somehow, that had never been a part of what my mother always carried when she went to church, so she felt shamed and unwelcome. She never went back. She would sometimes refer to "bible thumpers" with disgust, at least for the first decade or so after that.
We lived in many places after that and every new home was accompanied by a search for a suitable church. When I was in high school I participated in those searches and she would accommodate my preferences, perhaps in hopes that I would continue to attend church with her after everyone else in the family had long since made it too unpleasant for her to force them to continue. We considered such important criteria as the quality of the music/choir, the comfort of the pews, and the level of inspiration of the sermons. Out of such things eventually is constructed deep and abiding faith - perhaps even rabid faith such as drove my mother away from that church in Monterey so many years before.
At the end of her life my mother would have been perfectly at home attending that church, forgiving their arrogance and their fetishes, dishing out love where there was pettiness. Church was always very important to her but I think sometimes that she was the true believer in those crowds, masquerading as an ordinary congregant. There, I will be arrogant about her faith where she could never be.
Tuesday, November 6, 2018
The Light Within
Nothing that I possess, nothing that anyone has, is safe from loss. Even my love for my family could degenerate under the onslaught of disease and undermine everything that is most important to me. That is why, in my rather extensive internal conceptual framework, I cherish the most my love for the people around me and for the world in general - above everything else. The hope is that as every element of my mind is slowly dissolved away in some worst case scenario, the most strongly held foundations will hang on the longest. I want my love to be like the sun shining in the sky for billions of years - sometimes perhaps hidden by clouds but never to be doubted as to its reality.
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| The sun and Mount Fuji |
Sunday, October 28, 2018
Prayer
I overlook the reciprocity principle in this case since it is unlikely that I will ever pray for them. I have often thought that funerals are for the living. I suppose that I also believe that prayers are for the one who is praying. I know that the people doing the praying are fully aware of the benefits they receive - as illustrated by the phrase "not by my will but by Yours (God's)". My mother was not one who ever failed to provide commentary and often in her prayers she had specific wants and desires but yet the realization always was there: what was going to happen was up to God.
I have been witness to a lot of prayer. It is my failing that I have failed to witness miraculous results. Once, however, the Seahawks won the Superbowl.
So then, my failure to pray for others is probably an act of unkindness. Would it be better for me to pray knowing that I have extreme doubts about its efficacy? Such an act reeks of insincerity, hypocrisy even. It is the sort of act that I have often seen in religious people - where they are plainly doing something without faith, going through the motions because without that "they got nothing". I estimate that there are more opioid addicts than there are people with authentic prayers - people who are more than rote sock puppets.
The more I write, the deeper I enter the realms of unkindness. Beyond the unkindness, however, there is a deep sympathy for the condition where we all find ourselves enmeshed. If the internal pain and tears I experience when I see people suffering amounts to a prayer then maybe there is at least one authentic prayer being rendered for them.
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| James Tissot, Jesus Wept (Jésus pleura) |
A story: In my late twenties I worked as an orderly in the imaging department of a hospital. As orderly it was my duty to appear every Saturday morning and ease the task load of the technicians who had to work that morning. On one occasion I recall miscalculating how much alcohol I could drink and still work in the morning. I showed up in a state of suffering.
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| Bronze statue of Avalokiteśvara from Sri Lanka, ca. 750 CE |
I am not superstitious. I believe that I discovered something fundamental (oxytocin?) about what it means to be human. I specifically exclude the possibility that I was using my "aura" to suck energy away from my patients. There are some nasty memes out there.
Mahayana Buddhism has kinder memes. Avalokiteśvara is "he who hears the sound of the world". Among the Chinese he becomes a she, Kuan Yin the goddess of mercy. As a system of faith, Buddhism comes the closest to avoiding all superstition. They strongly believe in the power of prayer, to the point of automating the process endlessly with wheels and flags.
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| Chinese statue of Avalokiteśvara (Kuan Yin) looking out over the sea, c. 1025 CE |
I prefer to deny the possibility that superstition and "magic" leverage any part of the objective/real universe. It would be painful to discover that I have inadvertently hurt anyone. It has been painful when I have inadvertently hurt someone.
So tell me: If there is a prayer in the heart of the forest yet there is no heart present to make or hear that prayer - is there a prayer?
Electric Prayer Wheels
Thursday, October 25, 2018
Limitations (Things I Learned from Mother Boeing)
In the world of manufacturing there are three dimensions: "quality, speed, and price (pick two)". There are many more catch phrases than that of course. Everyone wants to make everything easy. Everyone is looking for the formula that will make them rich without effort. Every few years during my career a new initiative would come along. For a while we all got on the band wagon and each of us sponsored some improvement, greater or smaller. Often we got a t-shirt.
It was all part of the job and we all understood that any balking would result in a quick path to a stagnant career, or worse. I find that I am, once again, struck dumb with regard to any discussion of the details. My rather adequate memory would reveal all too much about the foibles of management in the large organization. One thing though is that they were trying and usually their intentions were good.
I genuinely love the Boeing Company. It is the whole foundation of a very good life that I have led. I literally cried when Boeing planes were used to bring down the NY Trade Towers. There is real pride in being part of a great enterprise that builds a great product.
One of the more consequential initiatives at Boeing was the introduction of "lean" disciplines into Boeing manufacturing systems. The entire workforce was required to attend extensive training in "lean" techniques and learn all the "lean" catch phrases. It changed the company forever. Various "powers that be" made or broke their careers on the shoals of "Lean". I could write many postings about my perceptions of what happened and how Boeing was affected by its particularly global enterprise and the mismatch between the dream and the reality of the Boeing supplier chains. I also sometimes reflect on the Amazonian reality that has reshaped our lives - on how it must inevitably be permeated with Lean thinking.
I drank the kool-aid. I still believe in the efficacy of Lean disciplines, not just in manufacturing but also potentially for the restructuring of our whole economic infrastructure. I spent a number of years, roughly between 1997 and 2007, promoting advanced transportation systems to streamline our economy and take us to the next level. I do not believe that "rock" moved one iota during the entire time I spent pushing on it. I decided to stop banging my head on that wall (mostly).
I have always wanted to "fix the world". I have never, however, just accepted any particular approach to fixing the world. Marxism, for instance, was not an ideology I could accept. Likewise, Capitalism is where we expect to find "death panels" and a lack of sympathy for the disadvantaged. Steering an eclectic course one has to expect opposition. Sometimes the opposition is unexpected, coming from someone who does not understand what you are trying to do. More often it is from established forces in our society such as unions and engineering consulting firms - an unexpected alliance if one does not consider history.
Entire books have been written about failure. These days I am mostly working on my garden. Over time, "my garden" is more the Lake Wilderness Arboretum and less my own plot of land. I have many times participated in the salvage of some special garden that would otherwise be extinguished by developers. I want the work that I do to extend beyond my own life into the indefinite future. I believe in cause and effect, especially subtle effects, so I know that my life is not meaningless. I do not need eternal life or salvation. I do not even need to see and understand the eventual outcome.
My own garden will one day fall under development, nor do I have the resources to endow it for any lengthy period of time into the future. Some rich people do that, creating smaller or greater plots of acreage that will preserve a memory of a life style their children knew growing up, but which will never adequately serve the needs of species conservation or even of horticultural achievement.
Sadly, I am not being kind now. It is time for me to quit.
It was all part of the job and we all understood that any balking would result in a quick path to a stagnant career, or worse. I find that I am, once again, struck dumb with regard to any discussion of the details. My rather adequate memory would reveal all too much about the foibles of management in the large organization. One thing though is that they were trying and usually their intentions were good.
I genuinely love the Boeing Company. It is the whole foundation of a very good life that I have led. I literally cried when Boeing planes were used to bring down the NY Trade Towers. There is real pride in being part of a great enterprise that builds a great product.
One of the more consequential initiatives at Boeing was the introduction of "lean" disciplines into Boeing manufacturing systems. The entire workforce was required to attend extensive training in "lean" techniques and learn all the "lean" catch phrases. It changed the company forever. Various "powers that be" made or broke their careers on the shoals of "Lean". I could write many postings about my perceptions of what happened and how Boeing was affected by its particularly global enterprise and the mismatch between the dream and the reality of the Boeing supplier chains. I also sometimes reflect on the Amazonian reality that has reshaped our lives - on how it must inevitably be permeated with Lean thinking.
I drank the kool-aid. I still believe in the efficacy of Lean disciplines, not just in manufacturing but also potentially for the restructuring of our whole economic infrastructure. I spent a number of years, roughly between 1997 and 2007, promoting advanced transportation systems to streamline our economy and take us to the next level. I do not believe that "rock" moved one iota during the entire time I spent pushing on it. I decided to stop banging my head on that wall (mostly).
I have always wanted to "fix the world". I have never, however, just accepted any particular approach to fixing the world. Marxism, for instance, was not an ideology I could accept. Likewise, Capitalism is where we expect to find "death panels" and a lack of sympathy for the disadvantaged. Steering an eclectic course one has to expect opposition. Sometimes the opposition is unexpected, coming from someone who does not understand what you are trying to do. More often it is from established forces in our society such as unions and engineering consulting firms - an unexpected alliance if one does not consider history.
Entire books have been written about failure. These days I am mostly working on my garden. Over time, "my garden" is more the Lake Wilderness Arboretum and less my own plot of land. I have many times participated in the salvage of some special garden that would otherwise be extinguished by developers. I want the work that I do to extend beyond my own life into the indefinite future. I believe in cause and effect, especially subtle effects, so I know that my life is not meaningless. I do not need eternal life or salvation. I do not even need to see and understand the eventual outcome.
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| https://forums.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/threads/magnolia-campbellii-subsp-mollicomata-lanarth.441/ |
My own garden will one day fall under development, nor do I have the resources to endow it for any lengthy period of time into the future. Some rich people do that, creating smaller or greater plots of acreage that will preserve a memory of a life style their children knew growing up, but which will never adequately serve the needs of species conservation or even of horticultural achievement.
Sadly, I am not being kind now. It is time for me to quit.
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Status/Weather Report
Last Thursday my surgeon called at 6:30 PM while I was lying on the couch. It was the second day of my second cycle of chemo yet I was feeling pretty good and planning to attend the board meeting of my HOA. I am so proud of the board of my HOA. They have all stepped up to lift the load off of me since I came down with cancer. That is important because I am president. I am trying to carry on while also using this as an exercise in managing the continuity of the organization.
Dr. Dash is a urologist and he is planning to perform major surgery on me in early January. He already called me one other time and now we are like "old friends". He has now scheduled another cystoscopy on November 13th to remove the stents from my ureters. He agrees with Dr. Wright that having two stents is a sign that my disease is "clinically" T-3 rather than T-2. This is not a problem for me since I worship the truth, whatever that may turn out to be.
November 13th will the final day of my third chemo cycle, the final cycle commencing on the 14th. The second cycle was more tiring than the first. I am learning to deal with these ups and downs. I went on a spending binge recently so $600 worth of plants were delivered to the house today. I will take them to the arboretum in the morning to be unpacked and repotted.
I think that I will be having another CT scan soon. My oncologist is concerned that I may develop active TB since there are minor scars in my lungs - perhaps from 65 years ago when my mother had a Christian Science friend who died of TB. Mom said that we all have positive TB tests. That may be the reason. It is the possible reason that she named. There is also the fact that Dad's mother died of TB. Grandma Murphy's TB, though, was supposed to be bovine TB - caught from the family milking cow while they were in Peace River, Alberta homesteading.
I have daily granix shots for two more days then five days resting before it all starts again. I will have December off completely. There has been no recurrence of the pain from that one granix shot. I have a big bruise from that shot so something went wrong that time.
I need to start up the lights in the garage and move all my tender plants out of the weather. I have taken a few pictures over the last few days. No frost is predicted in the next ten days.
Dr. Dash is a urologist and he is planning to perform major surgery on me in early January. He already called me one other time and now we are like "old friends". He has now scheduled another cystoscopy on November 13th to remove the stents from my ureters. He agrees with Dr. Wright that having two stents is a sign that my disease is "clinically" T-3 rather than T-2. This is not a problem for me since I worship the truth, whatever that may turn out to be.
November 13th will the final day of my third chemo cycle, the final cycle commencing on the 14th. The second cycle was more tiring than the first. I am learning to deal with these ups and downs. I went on a spending binge recently so $600 worth of plants were delivered to the house today. I will take them to the arboretum in the morning to be unpacked and repotted.
I think that I will be having another CT scan soon. My oncologist is concerned that I may develop active TB since there are minor scars in my lungs - perhaps from 65 years ago when my mother had a Christian Science friend who died of TB. Mom said that we all have positive TB tests. That may be the reason. It is the possible reason that she named. There is also the fact that Dad's mother died of TB. Grandma Murphy's TB, though, was supposed to be bovine TB - caught from the family milking cow while they were in Peace River, Alberta homesteading.
I have daily granix shots for two more days then five days resting before it all starts again. I will have December off completely. There has been no recurrence of the pain from that one granix shot. I have a big bruise from that shot so something went wrong that time.
I need to start up the lights in the garage and move all my tender plants out of the weather. I have taken a few pictures over the last few days. No frost is predicted in the next ten days.
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| Weeping Maple Fall Color |
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| Angel's Trumpet |
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| Rhododendron 'Aleksandr Isayevich' |
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| Hostas shedding leaves. 'Halcyon' is running late. 'Frances Williams' is gone. |
Sunday, October 21, 2018
Some Music
Music has always been important to me. I treat music like everything else so it turns out that I am not so important to music. I was never going to appear in Carnegie Hall the way my cello teacher in Santa Clara suggested I might want, as I was leaving the last time that I saw him. I heard that he died only a short time later from Hong Kong flu. I do not have perfect pitch. Over the years I have developed ringing in my ears, which I am able to ignore.
I cannot share music as I might like in this blog so I will make this relatively simple. For me, the music that I know forms a pattern in my mind. Like most people music eventually fades into a kind of boredom where I do not want to hear it anymore. In some cases I use music as an index into my (associative) memory. When a memory is special the associated music becomes special, often for silly or childish reasons.
In the book, "Nine Princes in Amber", there is a pattern written in the floor in a room in the palace in Amber, just as there is also an identical pattern written in a floor in the sub-sea palace in Rebma. One who is "of the blood" of Amber can walk the pattern and receive the gift of walking all the patterns of all the alternate universes in that fantasy.
Here is a pattern, a sonata, that I sometimes play while waiting for sleep, to restore order in my mind and to restore purpose. In the third version the artist is very "declarative" and the music is rendered without any human failings and without the need to "push through" barriers. I go to another version for all of that (the first cut), when I need to feel a little more hope. With Depeche Mode the arpeggios are just that. Alternations in the first cut make them more melodic. The other versions are probably best seen as corrupt, but in the end it is all art.
I cannot share music as I might like in this blog so I will make this relatively simple. For me, the music that I know forms a pattern in my mind. Like most people music eventually fades into a kind of boredom where I do not want to hear it anymore. In some cases I use music as an index into my (associative) memory. When a memory is special the associated music becomes special, often for silly or childish reasons.
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| https://www.theverge.com/2016/7/20/12242806/chronicle-of-amber-tv-adaptation-robert-kirkman-skybound |
Here is a pattern, a sonata, that I sometimes play while waiting for sleep, to restore order in my mind and to restore purpose. In the third version the artist is very "declarative" and the music is rendered without any human failings and without the need to "push through" barriers. I go to another version for all of that (the first cut), when I need to feel a little more hope. With Depeche Mode the arpeggios are just that. Alternations in the first cut make them more melodic. The other versions are probably best seen as corrupt, but in the end it is all art.
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