Dr. Randy Pausch

I've been following the final journey of Dr. Randy Pausch. Those of you who read this blog regularly know that my husband, Morgan, died in March of 1998 of pancreatic cancer. Dr. Pausch also has pancreatic cancer, and has fought an amazing and to-date successful battle against it.

As I began following Dr. Pausch's journey I realized that he had a very different situation than Morgan did. Morgan was diagnosed long after the cancer had metastasized throughout his body. Unfortunately this is usually the case. Dr. Pausch was one of the lucky few who qualified for the Whipple procedure, and has been part of some clinical trials which have mostly been successful.

Success for Dr. Pausch and others like him is a relative term. There is no cure for pancreatic cancer. It is one of the leaders in cancer death, and while more and more lung cancer and breast cancer patients are surviving every year, pancreatic cancer deaths have shown no change. Researchers still do not know how to stop this dreadful killer, although they have had some limited success in slowing it.

So why hasn't pancreatic cancer gotten the same attention, and research money, as other cancers? Well, for starters it's not sexy. Breast cancer is sexy. Ladies in pink, racing and walking to support the cure; pink everything, every where. Let some famous person get breast cancer and the world knows about it now. And survivor stories are everywhere. I obviously am happy that breast cancer is sexy enough to have gotten lots of money and attention, because now there are drugs that help to keep it from coming back and I'm all for it not coming back. Lung cancer, also a big killer and now showing great success in cure and remission, is not as sexy as breast cancer. But everyone is on the stop smoking band wagon. While there are many other reasons why one gets lung cancer, smoking is top of the list, and smoking is top of the hit parade of "things you shouldn't do to yourself" and has been for some time.

The list is long. There are lots of cancers we have gone a significant way toward conquering. The childhood cancers that once took toddlers at a whopping 90% plus are now pretty much beaten back. Children still die of cancer, but at vastly smaller numbers. And other cancer deaths, such as testicular cancer (thank you Lance and Scott), prostate and skin are falling dramatically.

Pancreatic cancer doesn't get the bucks and the publicity because there aren't enough patients around long enough to get attention. The average life expectancy from diagnosis to death is 3-6 months. It has no early warning signs; you get no suspicious lumps or bumps or discolorations. Most of the time, you get diagnosed like Morgan did because you have this horrible pain that doesn't go away and keeps getting worse, and someone finally decides that maybe you don't have a pulled muscle afterall and does a bone scan or a C-T scan and there it is.

So Randy Pausch is important and notable for not only his courage and his humor and his love and the sheer tenacity of his spirit and the brilliance of his mind; he is important because he has survived, and because he has been willing, even anxious, to give of this last part of himself to those who almost never have a voice.

I would suppose that all of you reading this have heard of The Last Lecture. If you haven't, I highly recommend it. You can watch it on Youtube, you can buy the book. I have the book and keep dipping into it, savoring the words, marveling at the courage and love of a man so willing to share so inimate a part of himself. And I wonder how his wife finds the courage to endure, how they as a family have so much laughter and love and sheer joy, in the face of such sorrow.

Thank you, Randy Pausch.

The Power of the Purchase

Most of the things we buy either disappear regularly, like food and those paper products, or languish in our closets and on our shelves as grim reminders of the folly of spur of the moment acquisitions. Most of the people I know suffer from some degree under the delusion that buying things will make them happier. Why not? It's a subliminal and often blatant message sent at us regularly on the Internet, in our newspapers and magazines, and on television. As I wander the mall I am stunned by the number of clothing stores, and wonder how on earth people can wear that much clothing. I suppose I should be into buying clothing just a little bit. I can't remember the last time I purchased anything to wear, except undies.

Recently, however, we made two purchases that significantly changed our lives. That's what I think money should be for, and where the power of buying becomes real: when you get to purchase something that really makes a difference.

First we bought a piece of land. It's tiny. We will have to build a two-story house, but that's not a problem. They have stairchairs now for those of us who are climbing challenged. We start building soon, which is another kind of purchasing power. We paid cash for the land. What a rush that was. No mortgage papers, no prying into our private lives to record everything from our bank balance to our blood type. Just sign here, hand over the check, and VOILA it's ours. Pictures will come soon, I promise.

Next, we bought me a scooter. When I was at the doctor she agreed with me that once I got that scooter it would be pretty much over for my walking days, although I still force myself to walk as much as I can. But she also encouraged me to buy the scooter, because we both agreed that living my life in a 10x10 room because getting out was so physically painful is a worse idea than becoming dependent on a scooter. It's a jazzy little red number, and I intend to get an antenna and a racoon tail as soon as possible for it. I'm also going to replace the sad little peep that's an excuse for a horn with a bulb horn. I want something that makes people pay attention. The buses and commuter trains here in Portland are incredibly scooter/wheelchair friendly, so I'll be a travelin' woman.

Speaking of traveling, and having nothing to do with buying, driving on the freeways of Portland has provided a new joy in the last few weeks. Roses! Roses blooming everywhere on the sides of the freeways. Some genius decided that the City of Roses should plant hardy, bush climbers, of every imaginable color, in mass quantities at off ramps, on medians, along the sides... pictures to come of those too. We went to the rose gardens the other day and will be going back in a couple of days. Pictures of that too. It's just freakin' gorgeous out there.

Doc Time

I'm going to the doctor tomorrow. Time for still another checkup. This isn't the cancer checkup. That happens next month, with scans and everything. This is the tsk tsk you still haven't lost enough weight check up.

The fat clings to me with stubborn tenacity. I never, ever thought I would be a really fat person. I always struggled a bit, but for most of my life I thought I was a healthy weight. Perhaps a little more than the charts said I should be, but I felt good and strong, and that was all that mattered. I know what happened. It was the combination of losing Morgan, who was my "food brake" and eating my way through the depression of his death, and then marrying a man who saw no problem with saying, "Of course; let me get it for you" when I expressed a longing for ice cream.

But gustatory hedonism has deteriorated into full scale food addiction. They say the first step to conquering any addition is admitting you have a problem. I have a problem. I have a love affair with bread: rich, dark, heavy, seed-laden whole wheat bread; oat bread with cinnamon and raisins; any bread as long as it isn't white. I love bread. It loves me. It clings to my hips and my gut like one of those clinging teddy bears that you pinch on the back to spread their little legs and then they attach to wherever you put them. That's bread on my body. I don't eat ice cream -- I'm allergic. I don't eat sugar--it makes me dizzy. I do confess to a love for fatty foods, but my gall bladder has taken care of those days. The misery of the result of eating fried food far outways any pleasure.

But bread... it doesn't give me the trots; it doesn't make me dizzy; it doesn't fill me up to the point of discomfort. It smells wonderful, it tastes yeasty and beery and warm and says LOVE and HOME and COMFORT. How do you get rid of an addiction as powerful as that?

I stopped making homemade bread, thinking that the absence of the passion of baking bread would quell my desires. But I live in the land of bread. Anyone who hasn't had a loaf of Dave's -- any variety: peace bomb, cin Dog, spelt, seedy fields -- you haven't tasted bread. And then there is Kettlemen's where they have turned bagel making into a fine art, a gourmand's delight.

Someone suggested that I make bread a special treat, an occasional thing, a seldom tasted pleasure. HUH? How do you do that? How do you... oh my, I am an addict. Toast, bagels, baguettes... so many ways to make and eat bread. It isn't fair.

I know it shouldn't be a laughing matter, but I cannot help but laugh. I'm a walking loaf of bread. Somebody help me.

A News Vacation Extended

Except for reading about Senator Obama's historic win in the Democratic primaries, I've been eschewing the news, both in print and on television. I rarely even look at the headlines here on the web. It has been remarkably liberating. Nothing has changed for me personally except a lessening of an underlying sense of dread that the fear mongers from Washington have sought to instill in all of us.

Honestly I had no idea how deeply this national paranoia had affected me until I stopped feeding the fear fires. I am certain I am in no more danger now than I was a month ago when I took my first news break. I am of course acutely aware of the price of gasoline, as well as the rising prices at the supermarket. But that knowledge comes from shopping, and I don't need talking heads to tell me that things are going from bad to worse economically.

There are other areas of my life I wish I could take the same kind of break from. Unfortunately, I have to keep taking my anti-cancer meds, keep going to the doctor, keep waiting for the inheritance to show up in my bank account, yada yada yada... but at least these things are somewhat under my control. I get to choose my worries and prioritize according to my needs and preferences.

I don't miss smug smirking Lou Dobbs. I don't miss cute little Katie or Wolf Blitzer trying so hard to look and sound sincere as he assures us we are listening to the "best" whatever the CNN group du jour is. Sometimes I think my best news sources may be Bloom County and Doonsbury.

At any rate, this news holiday thing may become a habit. It is refreshing to say the least, and leaves me with time to contemplate the more important issues, like my carbon footprint, selection of a new charitable activity, reading (currently it's Spinoza and Richard Dawkins), and being quiet. I'd say it's working. I'm calmer already, and I've lost some weight.

Time To Smell the Roses

It looks like a beautiful day out there. And since it is the middle of the Rose Festival we thought we should have a rosie day. So we will hop on the Max -- our lite rail line -- and get off at the zoo stop. I think we will take the zoo train over to the rose gardens. It is fun ride, and as long as we wear light jackets today it should be fine.

The Portland rose test gardens are the largest in the world, or at least they used to be. I am taking my camera with an empty memory stick. I hope to get close ups as well as panoramas, because I want to print and frame pictures of roses for our new house. I have some nice art works now, but I have decided that I want a lot of self art in the new house. And I have very distinct tastes.

Art will be a challenge in the new house, because we will have almost no walls. We are going for as wide open a floor plan as we can. Our inspiration is the Stockman House, built by Frank Lloyd Wright. Our version will be smaller, and less costly. But the idea is there.

So, off to find art and inspiration at the rose gardens, and some fresh air.