ENCORE #78! – Breast Cancer In Fiction

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…That was four years ago – as time passed, people searching for answers stumbled across my blog and checked out what I had to say. The following entry appeared in October of 2014.

I just found out a week ago that I had sold my first novel. It’s a coming of age, urban young adult book about a biracial boy who LIKES to fight and the realization that he has to STOP if he wants to get ahead in life.

In my spare time, I’m also a “first line of defense” – what’s called a first reader in the publishing industry – for an online science fiction magazine. The editor’s wife is also a breast cancer survivor, and they sent me a story to share with my wife. It was witty and sharp – which is the way I prefer my humor (except for the occasional slapstick routine that makes me laugh so hard I can’t breathe…).

It got me to thinking: how much “breast cancer fiction” is there out there? I started a novel here some years ago in which I was re-writing FANTASTIC VOYAGE – a novel written by Isaac Asimov...based on a MOVIE script written by Henry Kleiner...which was based on a STORY written by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby...(and because the novelization of the movie, everyone (myself included) thought that Asimov had come up with the idea and written the novel from which the movie was made – which was a lot of effort for almost no feedback.

I decided to check and see in what works of fiction breast cancer appeared. So here’s my list and except for the one story I read above and the one I’m in the middle of writing, I can’t vouch for any of these.

According to Amazon.com, there are 328 works of fiction that deal with breast cancer. I notice on perusal that many of them are “self-published”. While this doesn’t mean anything bad, it CAN mean that a manuscript was edited by an amateur and have some of the problems that that implies. I have tried to stay with novels released by other-than-self publishers.

Positively Beautiful, by Wendy Mills – http://www.amazon.com/Positively-Beautiful-Wendy-Mills/dp/1619633418/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414237990&sr=1-1&keywords=breast+cancer+fiction

Before I Go, by Colleen Oakley, http://www.amazon.com/Before-I-Go-Colleen-Oakley/dp/1476761663/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414237990&sr=1-2&keywords=breast+cancer+fiction

Cancer Vixen, by Marisa Acocella Marchetto, http://www.amazon.com/Cancer-Vixen-Marisa-Acocella-Marchetto-ebook/dp/B00O02CAZC/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414237990&sr=1-7&keywords=breast+cancer+fiction

Love In Bloom, by Sheila Roberts, http://www.amazon.com/Love-Bloom-Sheila-Roberts/dp/1250046475/ref=sr_1_46?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414238785&sr=1-46&keywords=breast+cancer+fiction

All That Glitters, by Jennifer O’Neill, http://jenniferoneill.com/?page_id=570

And of course…

The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan, http://www.amazon.com/The-Middle-Place-Kelly-Corrigan/dp/1401340938/ref=zg_bs_4673_4

I MAY read these. I may not. I MAY start my novel, A FANTASTIC BREAST CANCER VOYAGE again...I may not. Even so, at least we know that there are people out there brave enough to write about it. Now if only I can find a novel about a breast cancer HUSBAND...hmmmm...

Image: https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5527/10893068965_1d328e8f71_b.jpg

BREAST CANCER RESEARCH RIGHT NOW! #58: Recurrence...Even a SMALL Weight Loss Can Lower Breast Cancer Risk and Recurrence

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…

Every month, I’ll be highlighting breast cancer research that is going on RIGHT NOW! Harvested from different websites, journals and podcasts, I’ll translate them into understandable English and share them with you. Today: http://www.breastcancer.org/research-news/lower-risk-with-modest-weight-loss

Because it's the holidays, this one will be short and sweet (hmmm...I just realized that this is more of a pun than I intended...)

“In addition to lower breast cancer risk, losing weight also can help lower any inflammation in your body and also reduce your risk of heart disease and other conditions [including diabetes].”

After moving into our new choice of lifestyle – using Weight Watchers^® and teaming TOGETHER – we’ve both lost 30+ pounds and are both feeling better and looking better.

Curious about how my wife’s weight loss might affect the recurrence of BC, though it’s a bit late for reducing the risk of breast cancer, I discovered that “Melinda Irwin, Professor of Epidemiology from Yale University…found that 66 per cent of breast cancer survivors were overweight and obese, and only one in three were meeting physical activity guidelines…[She] also found that a marker associated with breast cancer mortality is reduced by 30 per cent when women reduce their weight by just five per cent. Insulin pathways within the breast tissue were also seen to change in ways that are linked to lowering cancer risk and mortality.”

These articles are NOT talking about surgical weight loss, or stomach stapling, or even expensive weight-loss programs. They’re talking losing amounts that a normal, thoughtful person might be able to do living an average life and skipping the occasional DQ Blizzard. “…you didn’t have to go down to a normal weight. This was a weight loss that was achievable by women making their own decisions, probably very few of them got into formal programs, and so the idea is that you don’t have to… get back to my weight when I was 22 years old…You just have to lose about 5% and you will have a likely health benefit.”

Keep on working toward health! Have a very Merry Christmas, a Happy Holiday, a powerful Kwanzaa, or simply enjoy the beginning of Winter as we begin the slow trek to Spring.

Resources: https://www.weightwatchers.com/us/; https://nbcf.org.au/news/research-news/weight-loss-can-help-reduce-risk-of-breast-cancer-recurrence/

Image: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/01/24/article-2267714-17247D96000005DC-718_634x551.jpg

ENCORE #77! – Bone Density Scan

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…That was four years ago – as time passed, people searching for answers stumbled across my blog and checked out what I had to say. The following entry appeared in August of 2014.

The word today is “osteoporosis”.

My wife just had a “bone density scan” done and the doctor said that the indications are that she has the beginning stages of this disease.

So I thought I’d take a step back and do a “translating the doctors” column.

First of all – why does the bone density of a breast cancer patient matter. (I won’t be using the last letter of the alphabet, a question mark or the mathematical symbol for nothing – they have stopped working.) At any rate, bone density matters: “Osteoporosis is a condition in which the bones become less dense and more likely to fracture.”

Sounds simple enough. Factors that figure into the disease are on this site, too. The problem is that: “Women who have had breast cancer treatment may be at increased risk for osteoporosis and fracture for several reasons. First, estrogen has a protective effect on bone, and reduced levels of the hormone trigger bone loss…Studies suggest that chemotherapy also may have a direct negative effect on bone. In addition, the breast cancer itself may stimulate the production of osteoclasts, the cells that break down bone.”

In order to monitor patients during treatment and afterwards, doctors do something called a “bone scan”. What’s THAT mean (question mark)

Here’s a simple explanation of what happens: “The DXA (= Dual-energy X-ray Absorptiometry) machine sends a thin, invisible beam of low-dose x-rays with two distinct energy peaks through the bones being examined. One peak is absorbed mainly by soft tissue and the other by bone. The soft tissue amount can be subtracted from the total and what remains is a patient's bone mineral density…it feature[s a] special software to compute and display the bone density measurements on a computer monitor.”

The question now is does this mean you should panic – and the doctor’s advice is “NO!” While osteoporosis can’t be “cured”, you can take steps to lessen the effects. “Getting enough calcium and vitamin D is essential to building strong, dense bones when you're young and to keeping them strong and healthy as you age.”

And you do that by eating well “…food is the best source of calcium. Dairy products, such as low-fat and non-fat milk, yogurt and cheese are high in calcium. Certain green vegetables and other foods contain calcium in smaller amounts. Some juices, breakfast foods, soymilk, cereals, snacks, breads and bottled water have calcium that has been added. If you drink soymilk or another liquid that is fortified with calcium, be sure to shake the container well as calcium can settle to the bottom.”

In our case, my wife is planning to increase her calcium intake – while she uses the chocolate “calcium chews”, she’ll add in the foods.

So if SHE’S not panicking, no reason for anyone else to panic! Be smart and eat well and take the drugs prescribed. If we end up going that route, I’ll do another post. But for now, this is what we know!

Resources: http://www.niams.nih.gov/Health_Info/Bone/Osteoporosis/Conditions_Behaviors/osteoporosis_breast_cancer.asp, http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=dexa, http://nof.org/articles/10#CALCIUMSOURCES

Image: https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5527/10893068965_1d328e8f71_b.jpg

GUY’S GOTTA TALK ABOUT #39…Looking Forward To the Day It’s All Just A Bad Memory

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…

Since the chemotherapy ended a couple of years ago, we don’t talk about cancer any more.

Sometimes that’s strange; sometimes it’s an attempt to, not exactly pretend, but block out parts of those years. Like when I see the Christmas picture the family took that year, I see many things that were different – my daughter-in-law is pregnant with our SECOND grandchild.

Dad doesn’t have Alzheimer’s.

Mom is alive.

My great-niece hasn’t been born yet.

My nephew, my niece, and my daughter are all still unmarried.

Everyone is smaller.

Mom and Dad are in the center and the rest of us are gathered around them…

And then there’s my wife. She has no hair. She’s standing just a few months post-chemotherapy.

So much has changed that a little thing like breast cancer shrinks to “just one more thing”. It sounds like it should be a huge part of our lives forever and while it IS, it’s no longer the monster it seemed back then. Of course there are shadows of “recurrence”. Of course there are consequences for fighting back against so horrible a disease.

But, I have a strange feeling this is exactly as it should be. Once beaten, we SHOULD bury the demon; or cast it back into its fiery Hell to burn with the rest of the trash that gathers around lives both lived well and lived badly. But maybe she SHOULD forget. My daughter and I both shake our heads when my wife says, “I just don’t remember that much from that whole time.”

My daughter and I look at each other and one of us says, “We do.” Because it’s true. We remember every treatment, every suction bag draining, every bandage change, every tear shed, every moment of hopeless horror, every bag of Red Devil poison pumped into her bloodstream targeting the fastest growing cells in the body – which is why hair growth cells (follicles) died along with the cancer cells. We remember it; and are thankful that my wife DOESN’T.

It’s something that should stay forgotten, and if I have unexpected flashbacks, that’s OK so long as the cancer stays beaten and my wife continues to enjoy her job, our kids, kids-in-law, foster kids, grandkids, and old friends. Puzzles are a joy again rather than a distraction from pain; food is fun rather than a chore.

It’s OK to forget some things. I look forward to the day that this is all so long past that it’s barely a bad memory.

Image: http://wrex.images.worldnow.com/images/23784252_SA.jpg

ENCORE #76! – 12 Inspiring Quotes From Men Who Care For Women With Breast Cancer – or Who Have Survived Breast Cancer Themselves

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…That was four years ago – as time passed, people searching for answers stumbled across my blog and checked out what I had to say. The following entry appeared in June of 2014…

“For people who don't know me, I practiced medicine in Casper, Wyoming for 25 years as an orthopedic surgeon, taking care of families in Wyoming. I've been chief of staff of the largest hospital in our state. My wife is a breast cancer survivor.” – John Barrasso (US Senator, Wyoming)

“Men are incredible caregivers when given the opportunity. But they are underserved in education about support,” – Marc Heyison (Author, Founder – Men Against Breast Cancer)

“At the clinic she went to, they said, ‘Here is some information,’ and it was a tri-fold paper that said what to expect, and to be supportive, he recalled. Well that’s not really enough. You need more than that. I tried to get help, but there was nothing there to go to.” – Chris Wrobel (Husband and caregiver of a breast cancer survivor)

“All of the reality TV I've done has usually been simultaneously an opportunity to create awareness or raise funds for my mom's breast cancer organization.” – Stephen Baldwin (American actor, director, producer and author)

“One of the things we've always tried to do is help others with our story. Whether it's with the infertility issues, whether it's with the breast cancer, we said we're gonna turn these negatives into positives. And if we can help others by sharing our story, then it's worth it.” – Bill Rancic (Husband and caregiver of Giuliana Rancic, Italian American television personality and journalist)

“I have experienced firsthand the tremendous impact breast cancer has on the women who fight it and the loved ones who support them. This is a disease that catches you unaware and, without the right resources, leaves you feeling frightened and alone.”

– Ricardo Antonio Chavira (American actor, Desperate Housewives, and son of a breast cancer victim)

“Men get it. I think us men need you women to help us survive.” – Peter Criss (Drummer from the heavy metal band KISS)

“I learned that it is better to tell people what they mean to us now, rather than to save it for a eulogy at a funeral service.” – David (breast cancer survivor)

“We all know people – mothers, sisters, daughters, neighbors – who have dealt with breast cancer, and it’s wonderful when we know people who are really surviving.” – G Roy Duhé (PhD, breast cancer researcher)

“When we embrace uncertainty, it can be very liberating. If you can accept the uncertainty, it allows you to live life every day.” – Victor Gospodinoff (Caregiver and husband of breast cancer survivor)

And lastly, something I said that resonated…with me…

“From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…” – Guy Stewart

Resource: http://www.menagainstbreastcancer.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/bookComplete-1.pdf 

Image: https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5527/10893068965_1d328e8f71_b.jpg

GUY’S GOTTA TALK ABOUT…Alzheimer’s #12: A CONFIRMED Method to Help Prevent Dementia!

Dad’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s stayed hidden from everyone until I took over the medical administration of my parents in 2015. Once I found out, there was a deafening silence from most of the people I know even though virtually all of them would add, “My _____ had Alzheimer’s…” But there was little help, little beyond people sadly shaking heads. Or horror stories. Lots of those. Even the ones who knew about the disease seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Alzheimer’s Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this part of my blog…

It's called “Speed of Processing”.

According to the site listed below: “Processing speed involves one or more of the following functions: the amount of time it takes to perceive information (this can be through any of the senses, but usually through the visual and auditory channels), process information and/or formulate or enact a response. Another way to define processing speed is to say that it’s the time required to perform an intellectual task or the amount of work that can be completed within a certain period of time. Even more simply, processing speed could be defined as how long it takes to get stuff done.”

Hmmm…this sounds like something people have to do in order to get into the civil service – specifically into the Post Office. https://www.test-guide.com/postal/free-postal-exam-questions/postal-exam-473-part-a.html

When I was a cashier in a grocery store, we had to do processing – before the advent of UPC stripes, we had to read the price on the top of the item, and type it in by touch. Today, cashiers don’t have to do anything except position the purchase and pass it over a glass screen. I suppose though, that it requires a certain amount of processing skill…

Of course, at the third site listed below, YOU TOO can purchase this BRAIN-SAVING program!!!!!! For only $100 a month (paid annually. If you choose the monthly payment plan, you pay $130 or so a year). I also have no idea how hard it would be to get out of your contract – there’s no “your money refunded if not absolutely satisfied!!!!!” mentioned on the page…

Do I sound sarcastic? Do I sound obnoxious? Do I sound bitter? My attitude springs from the thought that with the prevalence of Alzheimer’s and other dementias and the costs associated with the disease (https://www.alz.org/facts/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-KyetoPV1wIVA7XACh0sWgPbEAAYASAAEgJYoPD_BwE) (we pay $5000/month for my father to live in a Memory Care Unit of a very nice retirement apartment community), you’d think that the program would be offered free-of-charge, promoted by the Atheists of America and the TransHumanist Society of Earth and by the Pope, the Dali Lama and any of the other people listed here: https://globein.com/b/10-most-influential-spiritual-leaders-around-world-4.

But this is the first I’ve ever heard of it. How about you? If there is strong evidence that it will prevent dementia, why aren't the "pro-vaxxers" screaming for it to be provided to everyone on Earth whether they want it or not?

Hmmm...OH! It must not serve someone's narrow political agenda -- I mean all it would do is save people from spending their twilight years answering the television remote when the phone rings...

Sarcastic? Bitter? Obnoxious? You bet your ass!

Resource: http://news.medicine.iu.edu/releases/2017/11/brain-exercise-dementia-prevention.shtml, http://www.mghclaycenter.org/parenting-concerns/grade-school/intro-processing-speed/,  https://www.brainhq.com/world-class-science/published-research/active-study?lead_id=google-search-text-custom-ACTIVE_Study&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5_mGguvT1wIVl7jACh2CdgRlEAAYASAAEgLF9fD_BwE, https://medicine.iu.edu/blogs/research-updates/brain-training-dementia-prevention/

Image:  http://az616578.vo.msecnd.net/files/2016/06/25/6360242025150255191939281878_Alzheimer-disease-patients.jpg

ENCORE #75! – Breast Cancer Wisdom 10

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…That was four years ago – as time passed, people searching for answers stumbled across my blog and checked out what I had to say. The following entry appeared in April of 2014.

When I started this site, I was looking for a title for it and stumbled across STA ND BY HER. Excited, I began to skim through the site. When I discovered a forum, I was nearly ecstatic. I’d finally be able to talk with other men about how they felt about breast cancer in their wives, sisters, aunts, mothers, and friends!

Not.

The forum had been overrun by spambots. I tried it today – and it’s dead. As a doornail. Here’s the message:

General Error

SQL ERROR [ mysql4 ]

Unknown MySQL server host 'standbyherbbphp.db.5015781.hostedresource.com' (0) [2005]

An sql error occurred while fetching this page. Please contact an administrator if this problem persists.

Men continue to say nothing about breast cancer and their feelings. There is no international network. No national clearinghouse. There’s barely state and local fora for men to talk.

Is that because men generally DON’T talk? That was the premise of my website. Three years later, most of the men I know STILL don’t talk. There is a man at work whose wife went through breast cancer treatment around the same time my wife did. Do we talk? Commiserate? Share?

Nope.

Shortly before my wife was diagnosed, an old acquaintance of mine eventually came out to an online group he ran and I participated in that his wife had been diagnosed with breast cancer. I offered what comfort I could – but it was a cold comfort because we hadn’t seen each other in decades. Four months later, my wife got the diagnosis. This friend offered more than comfort – he was THERE for me. We still hadn’t seen each other, but through him, his wife offered support to my wife. Some time later, we met for lunch and while we STILL didn’t talk about breast cancer and how it affected us and our wives, we sat at the same table and simply “were” together.

The late Madeleine L’Engle once wrote, “When I am constantly running there is no time for being. When there is no time for being, there is no time for listening.” (Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art)

I think I’m beginning to see that men are never going to talk to each other – they find it helpful instead just to “be” with each other. Knowing that there are others like them who struggle with their beloved women dealing with breast cancer is, maybe, enough for most men.

John W. Anderson and me – and others – though will talk with our computers. After all, since I started the blog, I’ve gotten nearly 16,000 hits. I figured out in my head last night as I was coming home with Chinese food, that that is roughly ten hits a day. Who hits the site? No idea; there have only been 16 comments. *shrug* I am not only resigned to that now, I’m actually OK with it. I may never know if I helped anyone by doing this site – but now I understand that just BEING here may help some.

And that’s OK with me.

Resource: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/stand-by-her-john-w-anderson/1100313600?ean=9780814413913

Image: https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5527/10893068965_1d328e8f71_b.jpg

BREAST CANCER RESEARCH RIGHT NOW! #57: A Possible Bright New Tomorrow in Treating Certain Types of Breast Cancer!

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…

Every month, I’ll be highlighting breast cancer research that is going on RIGHT NOW! Harvested from different websites, journals and podcasts, I’ll translate them into understandable English and share them with you. Today:

Effect of neoadjuvant chemotherapy on tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes and PD-L1 expression in breast cancer and its clinical significance

Whew!

In plain English?

Neoadjuvant: sometimes doctors will use chemo to shrink tumors they’ve discovered BEFORE they do lumpectomies or even radical mastectomies. They’re discovering that not only does the chemo shrink the tumors, they also seem to boost the body’s own immunity response.

Some other terms I came across in reading the article I linked to below:

Immune markers: Cluster of Differentiation (abbreviated as CD) is a method used to identify and investigate the outside of certain molecules that are targets on cancer cells for chemotherapy. CD molecules can act in many ways, often acting as receptors or molecules that turn receptors on that are important to the cell. When a cell gets a certain set of signals, the behavior of the cell can change. Other CDs cause cells to stick together.

Tumor infiltrating lymphocytes: white blood cells (the ones that fight infections) that, when they increase makes it more likely that a breast cancer patient will STAY cancer free.

Programmed death ligand 1 – (the PD L1 in the title of the article) an increase in this protein ALLOWS cancer cells to grow by stifling the production of cancer-toxic cells in the area around a tumor.

The cells that fight cancer secrete cytotoxins – “cell poisons” – that exert anti-tumor activity by causing a response that destroys chemo-damaged cells. That may then lead to your own immune system kicking in to fight the cancer. The balancing act comes from the possibility that the chemo that damages the cancer cells MIGHT kill the lymphocytes that are supposed to kill the tumor cells…

So, all together: current research is studying the effect of shrinking tumors with chemotherapy making it so that there will be LESS surgery, and that when there IS surgery, it’s not as invasive. As well, the use of neoadjuvant therapy can also stimulate the body’s own immune system – but there is a fine line between initiating your own body to protect itself and destroying that same defense system.

We’ll see how far we can get in the future – there may conceivably come a time when at the first sign of certain types of breast cancer, doctors start the tumor-shrinking therapy, followed by the removal of what remains, and the “hyper-activation” of the body’s own defenses to complete the treatment.

Now THAT will be a brighter tomorrow!

Resources: https://breast-cancer-research.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13058-017-0884-8

Image: http://peggyrcc.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/35-neoadjuvant-therapy-axitinib-43-yp-wf-s-p-12-weeks-axit.jpg?w=300

ENCORE #74! – Reconstruction Part 11 – Breast Reconstruction Challenges…

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…That was four years ago – as time passed, people searching for answers stumbled across my blog and checked out what I had to say. The following entry appeared in April of 2014.

While it may seem an obvious choice to some who are outside of the breast cancer community (are there ANYONE who is?) breast reconstruction is not an easy choice.

After months that include radical mastectomy, chemotherapy, hair loss, and recovery, the decision to “go under the knife” again is not one that women take lightly.

Even so, new research shows that more and more women are undergoing the procedure to rebuild what was once there. “Researchers found that 46 percent of patients received reconstruction in 1998 but that figure rose to 63 percent by 2007.”

While this article was informative, from a layperson’s point of view, I find the authors somewhat narrow-minded – perhaps even “ignorant” – about certain things, and that bothers me.

For example, “The study also revealed dramatic variation in reconstruction based on geographic region, from a low of 18 percent in North Dakota, to a high of 80 percent in Washington, D.C. This was largely associated with the number of plastic surgeons working in each state…Any time we see geographic variations in practice patterns, we worry that care is not being appropriately individualized and that patients are not being offered all their options. It’s important to make sure women have all the information they need about breast reconstruction and are aware that it is an option...” (emphasis mine)

REALLY? REALLY? Have any of the authors even visited North Dakota? Clearly not! I actually have friends from ND – and some from DC. As a whole, ND is a very conservative state with a preponderance of farmers and has a frontier attitude. A “I can take it” sort of way of looking at the world. I would say THIS has a larger effect on the number of women getting reconstruction after mastectomies than “the number of plastic surgeons”. Did the authors consider that the attitude of your average NoDak would drive out plastic surgeons; they’d be seen as superfluous parasites. And DC’s plastic surgeons? REALLY? REALLY? In a city where the highest rollers are broadcast nationally and internationally with close-ups and in press conferences on a minute-by-minute basis, plastic surgeons would FLOCK there to make sure our politicians look pretty on TV and in webcasts!

That seems such a no-brainer, it makes me wonder about the rest of the study.

This seeming blindness brings into question another statement: “The researchers also note that more women are receiving implants rather than recreating breasts using tissue from other parts of their body, called autologous reconstruction. Autologous techniques tend to deliver better cosmetic results and higher satisfaction, but it’s a time-consuming, demanding operation that requires a longer hospital stay and recovery time. The researchers raise concern that current medical reimbursement discourages surgeons from offering autologous reconstruction.”

REALLY? Choosing a long, difficult surgery with a lengthy recovery time after…a long difficult surgery with a lengthy recovery time doesn’t seem a natural aversion-reaction by breast cancer survivors and can be more sensibly ascribed to INSURANCE COMPANY PRESSURE????

Hmmm. My further comment here would be that perhaps the authors – maybe even more breast reconstruction plastic surgeons – should cast more widely when interpreting their research data. Even so, the update on the subject was reasonable and even though the interpretation was narrow-minded, the DATA was sound.

Resource: http://www.mcancer.org/news/archive/more-women-receiving-breast-reconstruction-after-mastectomy-study-finds

Image: https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5527/10893068965_1d328e8f71_b.jpg

GUY’S GOTTA TALK ABOUT…Alzheimer’s #11: Time Traveling With My Dad, part 2

Dad’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s stayed hidden from everyone until I took over the medical administration of my parents in 2015. Once I found out, there was a deafening silence from most of the people I know even though virtually all of them would add, “My _____ had Alzheimer’s…” But there was little help, little beyond people sadly shaking heads. Or horror stories. Lots of those. Even the ones who knew about the disease seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Alzheimer’s Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this part of my blog…

I’m a STAR TREK nerd and I have been since my dad introduced me to the TV series in 1968 or 1969. I was pre-adolescent, and desperate to have something in common with his. I’d failed miserably in “sports” and long ceded that domain to my brothers and sister. I’d pretty much given up ever having any connection with Dad. Until Gene Roddenberry and Lucille Ball conspired to bring my dad and me together. The fact is that for me, STAR TREK is inextricably linked to my relationship with my father, and I am a writer today because of that connection.

STAR TREK has also dealt with time travel since what is called The Original  Series, beginning with “Tomorrow Is Yesterday” in 1967 and a time travel incident that was used to reboot the entire franchise in 2009, creating a skew from the timeline of all of the TV series as well as the first ten movies…as well as a temporal incident in this real world. During the premier of that movie, my father, myself, and my own son went to the movie along with an old, old friend of mine…

Anyways, in all, STAR TREK has dealt with time travel issues in 50 of the 741 television episodes and thirteen movies.

When I talk to dad these days, I’m dealing with time travel issues all the time.

I’m pretty sure Alzheimer’s messing with Dad’s memories would have been stranger for me if I hadn’t actually messed around with time travel and alternate futures in my own head.

Most of the people who’ve heard me deal with Dad’s wanderings through the past and present are amazed at how calm and soft-spoken I am. Truthfully, the leaps and bounds he makes don’t bother me. I just go with the flow of the conversation – oh, I forgot to mention that Dad ALSO deals with alternate timelines as well. Like the one where Mom is still alive and is divorcing him…

Alzheimer’s has given me a new appreciation for the philosophical concept of “being in the now”. Jesus said it, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34, NIV)

Buddha said it, ““The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.” (Motivating Thoughts of Gautama Buddha, Mahesh Dut Sharma)

Ekhart Tolle said it, “All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry - all forms of fear - are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of non-forgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.” (The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment)

Must be right, eh? (I’d put a smiley emoticon here if I could…)

For Dad, “now” is a fluid concept. Lately he’s been vividly dreaming, calling me to whisper that because I won’t believe him, I HAVE to come to his apartment, because Mom’s there and they’re talking; or insisting that he has an entire wardrobe at “that place I was before” he has to get to; or declaring that “the guys I bum around with” had just dropped him off and he was wondering when he would get paid for doing the job they did. But when I press for details (no, I don’t grill him!), the illusion begins to fall apart and he’ll say, “I don’t know where I am or what I’m going to do next…”

That’s the default mode. Something in him senses that the timelines aren’t lining up. He called last night to ask if I had Mom’s phone number, followed saying in the next breath, “Oh, Mom’s dead.” He’ll breathe one more time, then ask, “But does she have a phone where she’s at?”

When I’m feeling strong and in a good mood, I can joke about it, “Dad, you know where Mom is, right?”

“Oh, that’s right, she’s dead.”

“And you know how creepy that would be for you to try and talk to her in her coffin, right?”

He laughs, and then we move on to whatever the next point of conversation is, sometimes in the past, sometimes “I’m just bored here…”

I’ll talk about boredom some other time. For now, these are all my thoughts on time traveling with Dad. If you’re interested in my previous ruminations where I’ve done research into the medical “why” this is happening, you can go here: http://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/2017/09/guys-gotta-talk-aboutalzheimers-10-time.html

For now, that’s it.

Image:  http://az616578.vo.msecnd.net/files/2016/06/25/6360242025150255191939281878_Alzheimer-disease-patients.jpg

ENCORE #73! – Metastatic Breast Cancer: BRAIN CANCER

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…That was four years ago – as time passed, people searching for answers stumbled across my blog and checked out what I had to say. The following entry first appeared in January of 2012.

The first question that comes to mind is, “Is a brain tumor the same as brain cancer?”

While I don’t usually go to Yahoo Ask for my medical information, I decided today to START there because the answerer is both an MD and clear:

“Interesting that you bring this up. Primary brain malignancies have always been called brain ‘tumors’ rather than ‘cancer of the brain’. Yet many are clearly cancerous, locally invasive, progressing malignancies. Strange the way people perceive words. If you tell patients they have a ‘tumor, it does not seem as ominous to them as saying they have ‘cancer’…there is confusion that many people have in regard to this topic. A person with lung carcinoma that has spread to the brain has lung cancer in the brain. It is not a brain cancer. It is still lung cancer that is growing in the brain area. A person with a glioblastoma multiforme has a brain tumor - but these are usually aggressive cancers. As for cures - that depends on the primary brain cancer/tumor type and the stage.

Interesting question regarding the semantics of this.”

Source(s): MD medical oncologist - cancer specialist doctor Spreedog, 2010 http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091114024633AADSsIx

This is in concordance with what I’ve already found out about bone cancer and lung cancer – when you have had breast cancer and is spreads (which is what Metastatic Breast Cancer is), you have breast cancer cells growing wild in the bones, liver, lungs, brain and various  other places.

So what happens? This seems to me to be a truly horrible kind of MBC because the brain is the seat of Human consciousness.

The writer here expresses this terror: “It was because of a few unusual symptoms, that several months ago I requested a brain scan. By the time the date arrived for the scan, the symptoms, along with my fears, had disappeared. Imagine my surprise when the next day my oncologist called to say that they had found 2 tiny spots on my brain. The news was devastating. While breast cancer is every woman’s nightmare, and metastasis is the nightmare of everyone who has breast cancer, brain metastasis is the nightmare of everyone who has metastatic disease. It was so frightening that I couldn’t speak to anyone about it. I could barely allow myself to think about it. None of this is news to you. You wonder how many tears you can actually shed. You wonder if you will ever feel like your old self again and if your friends and family will ever think of you in the same way. You wonder if you will lose the person you are. It is the most terrifying diagnosis anyone can have, even those of us who are used to bad news.”

What are the symptoms? Please keep in mind that the symptoms are DIFFERENT depending on where the cancer attacks first. Also, OTHER things can cause these symptoms. My wife works as a classroom aide with kindergartners – she gets headaches sometimes, as anyone would who tries to work with a room full of five-year-olds!

Symptoms include: “changes in the ability to think, understand and use words correctly; emotional changes; weakness; dizziness; seeing lights, seeing double, or narrowing of vision; problems with balance; seizures; nausea and vomiting; changes in smelling, taste, hearing. If any of these symptoms persist (that is, stick around for a while) like a headache that is worse in the morning, lasts for days, or recurs every day, then you’ll want to talk to your health care authority.

Once you report to the cancer care center or your doctor and there appears to be reason to suspect MBC-brain cancer, an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) is the most effective technology for diagnosing breast cancer brain metastases. It does a better job in distinguishing a single metastasis from multiple metastases, which is an important factor in determining what kind of treatment a patient needs.

Unfortunately, treatment for MBC-brain cancer is problematic still. In m0st cases, whole brain radiation (which is exactly what it sounds like) is the first line of offense. There is good evidence that this treatment is effective almost half of the time in completely reversing the effects of the cancer. In MOST cases, it reduces the symptoms significantly. It is also a shorter-term treatment than the original chemotherapy with radiation doses given daily for 5-10 days (though this is sometimes spread over a longer period to lessen the side-effects.

At other times, the radiation is aimed from multiple directions at specific metastases. This has the advantage of fewer side-effects, but there is no clear EVIDENCE yet that this is as effective as whole brain radiation treatment.

Other, less common treatments include brain surgery (physical removal of the cancer), chemotherapy (not effective usually because the chemo can’t break through the barrier into the brain through the blood (called the blood-brain barrier); and a combination of the above.

Finally: “‘So much depends on the aggressiveness of your individual cancer, the time to recurrence from original diagnosis, any other metastases, and overall health—and, the number, location and size of the brain mets (metastases), and whether they are symptomatic or not,’  Patty observed. ‘I was so sure that I would die within 18 months of my first diagnosis with brain mets.  I readied for the time of my death. Now, I’ve had to revise things a few times.  I wonder if I hold some kind of record for brain MRI’s, having had them on average every two months for five years—that would be around thirty, with bad veins! I’ve had brain mets for five years and have been living with eight lesions for two and a half years.’”

Image: https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5527/10893068965_1d328e8f71_b.jpg

GUY’S GOTTA TALK ABOUT …#38: When There’s Nothing To Talk About Is There Nothing To Talk About?

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…

Like the title says…I don’t know what to say right now, so I’m going to direct you to a post by a very old friend of mine. I met Bruce Bethke before my wife and I married. I was looking for a science fiction writers group to join and stumbled across a notecard at UNCLE HUGO’S SCIENCE FICTION BOOKSTORE (http://www.unclehugo.com/prod/index.shtml).

Bruce, Phillip C. Jennings, and Geri Balter started meeting, then sort of drifted apart. Bruce and I didn’t talk much (it was at the advent of the Internet, so contact was via paper or face-t0-face). Several years later, at a MinniCon, I heard him speak, re-introduced myself, and as it was now the Age of the Internet, we renewed our friendship. Older and wiser, we found we had more things in common.

This his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer.

A few months later, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer.

We became actual friends.

He’s a science fiction award-winning author; he’s a man who has survived some very difficult life experiences, and now he’s the executive editor of an on-line speculative fiction magazine.

A few days ago, he shared about their most recent experience with breast cancer.

I’ll leave you to ruminate with him as he looks at jackalopes and cancer…

http://stupefyingstories.com/

Scroll down to the Thursday, October 12, 2017 entry...

Image: http://wrex.images.worldnow.com/images/23784252_SA.jpg

ENCORE #72! – Metastatic Breast Cancer: Liver Cancer

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…That was four years ago – as time passed, people searching for answers stumbled across my blog and checked out what I had to say. The following entry appeared in December 2011.

This is not a cancer you hear about frequently, though it is third worldwide after lung and stomach in the number of deaths each year. It is uncommon in the United States with three fourths of all cases diagnosed in Southeast Asia, Mozambique and South Africa.

It is one of the least common of the metastatic breast cancers with bone cancer being 70% of the metastases and brain cancer being 10%. The remaining 20% are distributed between liver, lung and non-specific systemic diseases.

Metastatic breast cancer-caused liver cancer can show up as a significant weight loss, jaundice (getting yellow skin – this condition is sometimes seen in newborns (our son was jaundiced at birth)), and elevated liver enzymes (Inflamed or injured liver cells leak higher than normal amounts of Alanine transaminase (ALT) [This enzyme causes certain reactions to happen in the body that provide for cell energy and brain signal transmission] and Aspartate transaminase (AST) [which helps in the formation of the amino acids used to make several different body proteins such as hemoglobin], into the bloodstream). Other symptoms of MBC are abdominal pain, loss of appetite, fevers, nausea, sweats and vomiting. In some cases, there are no symptoms.

Tests that may be done to diagnose liver metastases include a CT (Computer Assisted Tomography) scan of the abdomen, liver function tests (to check for the elevated enzymes mentioned above), MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) of the abdomen, PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scans or ultrasound of the liver

Pain from this kind of liver cancer responds to chemotherapy and analgesia. Doctors can also try radiation therapy to relieve pain and shrink the cancers.

How well you do depends on the location of the original cancer and how much it has spread to the liver. As recently as January of 2011, doctors have added a new treatment to the arsenal: Resection (removing parts of the liver affected by the cancer) of breast cancer liver metastases paid off in a survival benefit in patients with chemotherapy-responsive, estrogen receptor (ER)-positive primary tumors, according to data from a retrospective chart review.

“Although the cases were small in number, they are relevant in the context of changing views about cancer that metastasizes to the liver…I think there has been a [dramatic change in thinking] over the past 10 years or so, where it has been realized that this surgery can lead to long-term survival…I don't think that was recognized previously…I think there has been something of a nihilistic attitude toward breast cancer metastasis to other organs in the past…Generally incurable, most liver metastases from breast cancer are treated with chemotherapy or hormonal therapy,” said Daniel E. Abbott, MD, of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. “I think this information is most valuable when people are willing to counsel patients and make the tougher decisions about who should and should not have surgery and then let patients make informed decisions.”

Image: https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5527/10893068965_1d328e8f71_b.jpg

BREAST CANCER RESEARCH RIGHT NOW! #56: Andes Mountains Plant Extract Inhibits Growth and Spread of Cancer Stem Cells!

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…

Every month, I’ll be highlighting breast cancer research that is going on RIGHT NOW! Harvested from different websites, journals and podcasts, I’ll translate them into understandable English and share them with you. Today: Damsin inhibits the growth and spread of cancer stem cells…

Environmental scientists say all the time that “cutting down the rain forests could easily destroy the next cure for cancer…”

The plant is related to a plant we have lots of here, asters – you know, the tiny, “daisy” looking plant? Found on the Great Plains in it its natural state and in most garden stores in the spring, it’s common here in the US. THIS plant, with no name but its scientific one, Ambrosia arborescens, is found in the Andes mountains from Columbia down to Bolivia. The local peoples use it as an aspirin, a Tylenol, and an antiseptic, so it wasn’t like it was unknown.

Turned out that used against breast cancer, it stops the growth of these things called cancer stem cells. Cancer stem cells are highly resistant to chemotherapy because they are, in a way, not true cancer cells – it’s more like they’re FUTURE cancer cells.

In a way, these stem cells remind me of viruses. Viruses aren’t technically alive – specifically, they can’t make baby viruses without the help of another cell. Making babies is one of the BASIC definitions of living things (of course not ALL living things make babies! Within a species females can’t make babies without males; but given a viable egg and a sperm cell, Humans reproduce.) Viruses don’t make new viruses unless they invade a normal cell and take over its normal job, forcing it to make more viruses. THAT’S why “antibiotics” can’t kill viruses – because a virus isn’t alive, it can’t be killed. You might think of viruses as microscopic zombies…

Stem cells aren’t any specific kind of cancer cell – they’re a “generic” cancer cell – so chemotherapy designed to take out breast cancer cells doesn’t work, slides off the stem cells, which then go to a new place in the body (metastasizes) and turn into a breast cancer cell and begins to reproduce. This is where metastasized bone, lung, brain, and liver come from.

At any rate, the chemical that comes from the Ambrosia arborescens is called damsin (it can be made by Humans, too. When its artificial, it’s called ambrosin), and when used against cancer cells – at least in recent tests – both damsin and ambrosin “inhibit the division and mobility of the cancer cells. This means that the tumour becomes smaller as cell proliferation [cells dividing and growing] decreases.”

The research is only at the very beginning stages, BUT…if it continues to perform in animals and Humans the way it performs in the lab, this could lead to a new and better way to treat breast cancer!

Resources: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170927093304.htm

Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Ambrosia_arborescens_%289095778995%29.jpg

ENCORE #71! – Metastatic Breast Cancer -- Lung Cancer

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…That was four years ago – as time passed, people searching for answers stumbled across my blog and checked out what I had to say. The following entry appeared on Christmas Eve in 2011.

Some fifteen years ago, my wife’s mother passed away from lung cancer.

A child of her times, she smoked often and heavily for a number of years while raising four children, then quit – long before I met her.

Diagnose with lung cancer in 1994, she took chemotherapy, went into remission and finally succumbed to the disease in (I think – and my wife will correct me!) 1997.

Her disease was DIFFERENT than the type of lung cancer that can flare up after a woman (or rarely a man) is treated initially for breast cancer. Lung cancer after breast cancer is most often caused by BREAST CANCER cells that have invaded other organs and therefore are called metastatic breast cancer. The word “metastatic” was used in the 1570s and comes from the Greek metastasis which means "transference, removal, change.” The roots are meta which means "over, across" plus the word histanai which means "to place, cause to stand.” The medical use for "shift of disease from one part of the body to another" dates from 1660s in English.

“Metastatic cancer to the lungs is the spread of cancer from another region of the body to the lungs. The place where cancer begins is called the primary cancer. For example, if breast cancer spreads to the lungs, it would be called breast cancer with metastasis (spread) to the lungs. In this case, breast cancer would be considered the ‘primary’ cancer.”

Symptoms that would lead doctors to believe that the breast cancer had metastasized to the lungs are similar to those of “regular” lung cancer and would be warning signs that a person would need to see their doctor as soon as possible. They include: a cough that persists over time, or does not go away with treatment; coughing up blood, difficulty breathing (due to decreased airflow by a tumor obstructing the large airways or spread through the lungs); wheezing (caused by the interference of airflow through an airway obstructed by a tumor); pain in the chest, back, shoulder, or arm (when a lung tumor presses on nerves around the lungs); repeated lung infections such as pneumonia or bronchitis; hoarseness; and lastly, lung cancer CAN have no apparent symptoms and only appear  when a chest x-ray is done for another reason.

As well, “general symptoms” of lung cancer can sometimes present with vague concerns such as fatigue, weight loss, loss of appetite, and even depression can be a symptom of lung cancer as well as many other conditions.

Treatment for cancer metastatic to the lungs is usually determined by the primary cancer, or origin of the cancer. Systemic therapy (chemotherapy, biological therapy, targeted therapy, hormonal therapy), local therapy – which might include surgery or radiation therapy), or a combination of these treatments. The choice of treatment generally depends on the size, location, and number of metastatic tumors; the patient’s age and general health; and the types of treatment the patient has had in the past.

References: http://lungcancer.about.com/od/symptomsoflungcance1/a/symptomslungca.htm, http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Sites-Types/metastatic

Image: https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5527/10893068965_1d328e8f71_b.jpg

GUY’S GOTTA TALK ABOUT…Alzheimer’s #10: Time Traveling With My Dad

Dad’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s stayed hidden from everyone until I took over the medical administration of my parents in 2015. Once I found out, there was a deafening silence from most of the people I know even though virtually all of them would add, “My _____ had Alzheimer’s…” But there was little help, little beyond people sadly shaking heads. Or horror stories. Lots of those. Even the ones who knew about the disease seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Alzheimer’s Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this part of my blog…

I love the concept of time travel.

My favorite set of movies are the BACK TO THE FUTURE Trilogy.

My wife and I just spent the past week binge-watching Series 5 of DR. WHO.

STAR TREK (all of the series!) have great fun playing with time travel – doing some of the most impressive episodes of all time and introducing the entire Mirror Universe…

I LOVE TIME TRAVEL!!!!

However. Captain Kathryn Janeway in the Star Trek series, VOYAGER, had one of the most succinct criticisms of time travel I’ve ever heard. In the episode “Future’s End”, she says, “Time travel - from my first day on the job as captain, I swore that I would never let myself get caught up in one of these God-forsaken paradoxes. The future is the past, the past is the future...it all gives me a headache.”

I used to laugh at that, but since Dad starting sliding from Stage Four firmly into Stage Five of Alzheimer’s, her complaint has suddenly struck close to home.

Talking to Dad, I get headaches petty regularly these days. Dad’s mind slides from sometime in 1941 when he was just ten years old, to the present. There are moments when he forgets that my mom passed away (14 months ago now) only to remember that she did almost before the words leave his mouth.

He’ll call and ask where mom is…and after talking to him for a few minutes, I realize he’s talking about HIS mother. She died in 1954. Dad was only 23 and on leave from the Air Force because she was ill. His own father had died when he was sixteen.

In the previous 100 words, starting with “Talking to Dad…” you went from 2017 to 1941, back to 2017, then the middle of 2016 and onto 1954. That’s 70 years + 70 years + 1 year + 63 years, for a grand total of time travel years of 204 years.  

I’ll never know exactly how Dad felt either of those days because he just goes into a factual explanation about how his dad was napping while he was on the phone with some girl. After a while, Dad noticed that his father had stopped breathing. He gets even more factual and brief after that, ending with, “June took care of most of it.” June was my aunt. She was all of 29 when her mother died.

At any rate. The disease has made my father into a time traveler – a lost time traveler at that. While I’m still firmly rooted here, for him, he’s not unsure of what day or time it is, he has no real perception even of what year it is.

“For example, the perception of an ocean sunset combines a multitude of visual impressions; a vast color palette with numerous shapes (a round red sun, the line of the horizon, purple clouds of all shapes and sizes, etc.). But the experience is more than just visual. The sound of the waves and the gulls flying overhead. The smell and the taste of the salt water and the way the warm breeze feels against your face. You may be enjoying the moment with friends, and this also becomes a part of the overall experience, and of the memory.

“It is the hippocampus that sorts and compares these impressions (like the sunset) and creates a memory. Memories at this stage are short-term memories. The hippocampus then decides if a particular memory will be committed to long-term memory.

“So it is not surprising that forgetting a recent event (short-term memory) is one of the very first symptoms of this disease.”

OK – short term is scrambled so he forgets what happened yesterday. What about the skipping around?

“Patients with Alzheimer's disease…received tests of recall and recognition, word-completion priming, and incomplete-picture priming. [They] had impaired recall and recognition…[and] impaired word-completion priming. [They also] had intact incomplete-picture priming, a form of priming shown to be perceptual in normal subjects. These results provide…evidence for a dissociation between two components of repetition priming, perceptual priming…and nonperceptual priming... Preserverd perceptual priming in AD may be mediated by the occipital regions that are relatively spared in AD; compromised nonperceptual priming may be mediated by temporal regions that show dense neuropathological changes early in AD.”

In English? How about this: Based on tests that looked at , Alzheimer’s people have trouble remembering and recognizing things like pictures, words, and common sentences (Like, “See Jane run,” or pictures of places, people, or things). People can usually recognize words that are made up of words they already know – “airplane” for example, “air” and “plane”. They have more trouble with words they’re unfamiliar with, for example “Alzheimer’s”.

They also have trouble repeating actions unless they’re used to them. Another problem they run into is that there’s a weak connection with what’s happening “now” to Dad and what happened in the past. He’s experienced past events more often, so he remembers them. Current events aren’t attached to anything – except past events – Dad knows what it’s like for someone close to you to die. He remembers HIS mother dying. But not Mom dying and mentioning the current event sparks the past event. Ideas, language, and how he responds to various people in various situations – are damaged early on in Alzheimer’s.

So – Dad’s memories skip all over the place whenever something that’s happening “now” recalls something that happened “then”.

I still love time travel – I just hate watching my dad travel in time. It recalls to mind a STAR TREK: Deep Space 9 episode in which Captain Sisco’s son ages while the captain stays the same age and is snapped into his son’s life at different times. We’ll talk more about “The Visitor” next time and how it feels like what’s happening to Dad.

Resource: http://www.best-alzheimers-products.com/the-alzheimers-brain.html#prettyPhoto, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945213803255

Image:  http://az616578.vo.msecnd.net/files/2016/06/25/6360242025150255191939281878_Alzheimer-disease-patients.jpg