According to two scholars at the well-known research school, the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, there are six types of atheists:
1. Intellectual atheists are seekers of information and intellectual stimulation about atheism and enjoy debating and arguing with religious believers. The latter stipulation rules me out from this category, as I have no interest in debating with the religious. As Whitman wrote, "Logic and sermons never convince," so there's no point in engaging in debate.
2. Activist atheists not only disbelieve, they like to be aggressive in telling others why we'd all be better off without religion. At the moment, but hardly for the first time, an atheist in Massachusetts is suing to have the words 'under God' removed from the Pledge of Allegiance. I remember when I was a child, and in 1954, the words were added. Every morning at school began with a recitation of the Pledge, and over night we added those two new words. Since none of us was paying any particular attention (I was nine after all), at the time the addition didn't have particular significance.
3. Seeker agnostics don't really belong in the classification at all, since, according to the researchers, they have an open mind and don't have a firm ideological position. Agnostics are not atheists.
4. Anti-theists speak out often and vehemently against religion and religious belief. They are confrontational and believe that "obviously fallacies in religion and belief should be aggressively addressed in some form or another." I think if I have to be categorized, the researchers would put me here. I'm not interested in arguing or even really trying to convince another, but I often can't keep my mouth shut when religious people make confident pronouncements. And since the religious are so frequently vocal, they provide numerous occasions for sarcastic comments.
5. Non-theists, in this scheme, don't involve themselves one way or the other. They are simply unconcerned about religion and faith. This is sort of my default position. I have no interest in concepts like heaven or hell or, at a different level, hypocrisy within a religious group. You leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone. But since believers are rarely quiet, I find myself pushed more often than I'd like into group 4.
6. Ritual atheists aren't affiliated with any specific religion, but are still find "useful the teachings of some religious traditions." These are people who are likely to describe themselves as 'spiritual.' It drives me nuts when people say to me, "Well, you may not be religious, but I can tell you're a spiritual person." Nope. I don't have a spiritual bone in my body.
I'm not sure whether this study actually contributes anything to our understanding of atheists or atheism. Nor do I have a clear sense of the methodology of the researchers. It seems as if a late night, dorm room conversations could have arrived at similar categories. But the study not only was published, but also was reported on by CNN, so the researchers at least have burnished their academic reputation and résumés.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Within the last ten days, Turner Classic Movies has shown two of the greatest movies of all time: D. W. Griffith's 1916 masterpiece Intolerance and Fritz Lang's Metropolis, first shown in 1925, but immediately censored and cut with the mutilated version premiering in 1927. Both require patience from a modern viewer; Intolerance is three and a half hours long, and the newly restored version of Metropolis is nearly three hours. Both are, of course, silent and in black and white, though Griffith had some scenes in master prints hand tinted. TCM preserved a few of the tinted scenes. Just as eighteenth and nineteenth century British novels, wonderful as they are, are the bane of English graduate students because they are so long and we don't have the same lengthy leisure hours to fill as readers did a couple of centuries ago, so too it's not common to have three hours plus to watch a silent, b/w movie from nearly a hundred years ago. It's worth it, though. A few years ago, I taught a senior seminar on the American novel into film to some of the very best students we had. Not one of them had seen a silent film; none could remember ever having seen a film in black and white. They groaned when they saw that there were two silent films on the course list. Victor Sjostrom's The Scarlet Letter wasn't a huge hit, though it's by far the most intelligent and engaging version of Hawthorne's novel, but once Erich von Stroheim's Greed (1924) began playing I had a rapt classroom for the four hours of the restored version.
Greed is legendary for the series of cuts that were made in Stroheim's original 85 hours of footage, cut and cut and cut, with the deleted film supposedly destroyed. The four hours that are left in the restored version that currently is in circulation are mesmerizing. So, too, for years much of what was cut from Metropolis was thought to be lost, but a badly damaged print of the longer version was found in Buenos Aires, and what TCM shows returns much of the missing material, though not all of it has been fully restored in terms of quality. Metropolis might equally as well have been titled 'Greed,' as the world it creates--expressionistic, fantastic, futuristic--is divided sharply and neatly between the 1% and the rest. The very rich play in the "eternal garden," while the workers slave mechanically away to support them. I hadn't seen Metropolis in several years, and I thought I remembered it well. But this time it seemed different; it felt newly relevant to our own society and our growing divide between the have-it-nearly-alls and the rest of society.
TCM shows a lot of dreck, movies that are hardly classics, but it is one of the last forums for movies that are truly classics. I'm showing my age, but I can't resist nostalgia for the days when every university had film series that showed foreign and classic movies that weren't going to play in the first-run theaters that dominate movie-going these days. For several years in the 70s, a colleague and I ran the Shoestring Film Society at Washburn, showing movies on 16mm to an appreciative crowd, for whom most of the movies were new experiences. But then VCRs, then DVD players, then Netflix put an end to all that. And the movies that were available didn't broaden our sense of cinema but merely focused on those films that were in theaters a year or two before. (The eight dollars a month a spend for streaming Netflix is a complete and infuriating waste,) We brought back the Shoestring Film Society a few years ago, and for the next three years we had a respectable audience, even if the movie was silent or in black and white or in a foreign language. But there was a problem: the audience was overwhelmingly middle-aged and older, people from the town, not from the university. Very few students ever appeared to watch the films that we loved. And so when the university was going to close the auditorium where we showed the movies for remodeling, the second iteration of Shoestring came to an end. TCM, uneven as it is, is basically all we who don't live in big cities have left.
Greed is legendary for the series of cuts that were made in Stroheim's original 85 hours of footage, cut and cut and cut, with the deleted film supposedly destroyed. The four hours that are left in the restored version that currently is in circulation are mesmerizing. So, too, for years much of what was cut from Metropolis was thought to be lost, but a badly damaged print of the longer version was found in Buenos Aires, and what TCM shows returns much of the missing material, though not all of it has been fully restored in terms of quality. Metropolis might equally as well have been titled 'Greed,' as the world it creates--expressionistic, fantastic, futuristic--is divided sharply and neatly between the 1% and the rest. The very rich play in the "eternal garden," while the workers slave mechanically away to support them. I hadn't seen Metropolis in several years, and I thought I remembered it well. But this time it seemed different; it felt newly relevant to our own society and our growing divide between the have-it-nearly-alls and the rest of society.
TCM shows a lot of dreck, movies that are hardly classics, but it is one of the last forums for movies that are truly classics. I'm showing my age, but I can't resist nostalgia for the days when every university had film series that showed foreign and classic movies that weren't going to play in the first-run theaters that dominate movie-going these days. For several years in the 70s, a colleague and I ran the Shoestring Film Society at Washburn, showing movies on 16mm to an appreciative crowd, for whom most of the movies were new experiences. But then VCRs, then DVD players, then Netflix put an end to all that. And the movies that were available didn't broaden our sense of cinema but merely focused on those films that were in theaters a year or two before. (The eight dollars a month a spend for streaming Netflix is a complete and infuriating waste,) We brought back the Shoestring Film Society a few years ago, and for the next three years we had a respectable audience, even if the movie was silent or in black and white or in a foreign language. But there was a problem: the audience was overwhelmingly middle-aged and older, people from the town, not from the university. Very few students ever appeared to watch the films that we loved. And so when the university was going to close the auditorium where we showed the movies for remodeling, the second iteration of Shoestring came to an end. TCM, uneven as it is, is basically all we who don't live in big cities have left.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
This is the 200th blog. When I started, twenty-one months and 21,000 pageviews ago, I had no idea of how many entries there would be. I started with a sense of urgency, and initial blogs were all about medical issues and procedures, death, and atheism. As the days passed and the number of entries increased, the subject matter broadened: a lot about politics during the election, a number about poetry and its joys and consolations. Although all of those subjects still appear, by now the blog is pretty diffuse. Unless there's something specific, like tests at the cancer center, I write about whatever is on my mind at the time, no matter how trivial it may be. Usually the night before I'm going to write, I begin to worry that I'll have nothing to say. It's not exactly writer's block, since I know I won't be silent, but rather a shuffling through current events, possible poems, the state of my health in order to find something that will engage me and, I hope, the readers.
Thanks to all of you who have stuck with me for longer than any of us expected. With more good chemo and a little luck, I hope I'll be around for number 300.
Thanks to all of you who have stuck with me for longer than any of us expected. With more good chemo and a little luck, I hope I'll be around for number 300.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
"There are no good options." It's impossible to listen to a debate about what to do in Syria without eventually hearing those five words. Whether from a liberal or a conservative, someone pro or con on using military force, politician or pundit--that sentence is bound to be uttered. Some choices are clearly not options: any that would endanger American troops and/or suggest a prolonged involvement (e.g., boots on the ground, a no-fly zone).
For twenty years, discussions of military action were haunted by the 'quagmire' of Vietnam. Now, though Vietnam still is there in the background, it's the ghost of Iraq that shadows the debate, particularly among those who, in light of the lies by Powell and Cheney, are unwilling to accept the evidence that the Assad regime was responsible for the use of chemical weapons. This morning I heard a passionate argument that it was the Chinese and the Russians still in Syria who were responsible for the chemical attacks on behalf of the rebels. Since Russia and China are supporting the Assad regime, this seemed a strange and unconvincing argument, but the speaker claimed to have evidence to support her point. Amy Goodman, a progressive, argued that it doesn't make any difference because the U.S. used chemical weapons (napalm, agent orange) in Vietnam and supported Saddam Hussein, who was using gas against the Kurds, during the long Iran-Iraq war. Therefore, it's hypocritical for us to draw a red line against chemical weapons, and we're prohibited from acting now.
There's also the complication arising from the question as to whether the death of 1,429 Syrians from chemical weapons is somehow more morally reprehensible than the deaths of 100,000 people and the displacement of more than a million more from conventional arms.
Also shadowing the debate is the question, echoing what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, of what is the end game. What will be the effect of limited, targeted strikes? On the positive side, there are the examples of Kuwait, Bosnia, and Kosovo, where such strikes (78 days for Bosnia) were effective and the negative example of Rwanda, where our refusal to intervene is now regarded as a shameful episode in the Clinton presidency. Two days of strikes might punish Assad (is that a legitimate goal?), but they probably aren't going to change things on the ground.
There are, of course, those like Sen. John ("I never saw a nail I didn't want to hammer") McCain who want more aggressive action. He would bomb the airstrips in Syria in order to disrupt the daily supplies of arms to the government from Russia and China. He would also arm the rebels, specifically the Free Syrian Army. Convinced that we can separate the "good" rebels from the "bad" ones, he wants to send arms to the good rebels. He's perfectly assured that, since he's been to Syria and talked to representatives of the FSA, the arms won't fall into the wrong hands. His assurance that we can easily tell the difference and control the flow might be more convincing had the photo of him in Syria showed him standing with members of the FSA and a leader of one of most vicious of the rebel groups. His office later issued a statement in his defense saying that he didn't know who the man was. So much for easily distinguishing among the rebel groups.
A year and a half ago, even a year ago, it was common wisdom that Bashar Al-Assad's days were numbered; it was considered self-evident that his regime would collapse. Now, Assad is stronger than before and the rebels more disorganized and divided. So we bomb some strategic facilities for two days. Assad is still in power. Does our show of force intimidate him into being more flexible in the on-again, off-again diplomatic process? Or does it just embolden him as one who has taken what the Americans have to offer and is as strong as ever? Obama is gambling, we assume, that in addition to making a statement about the use of chemical weapons, strikes will facilitate further diplomatic efforts.
President Obama's surprise decision on Saturday to seek Congressional approval has some obvious advantages: it may consolidate support among those, usually progressives, who might tend to support the strikes but who were troubled by yet another presidential usurpation of Congressional power. Moreover, it puts each member of Congress on the record. And it may help convince a skeptical American public that air strikes are a good idea--or at least that their representatives have debated the issue and come to that conclusion. The danger, of course, is that what happened to David Cameron in the U.K. might happen here. What is Congress refuses to authorize the action? President Obama has made clear that he doesn't think he needs Congressional authorization. If they vote no, will he good ahead? If so, his actions will garner even less support within America. If not, all the leverage of our threats will be lost.
These are just a few of the thoughts buzzing around in my head the last few days. I've not even mentioned the sectarian divisions within the country or the proxy position of Syria in conflicts between the West and the East or within the Muslim communities. There's a good reason, many good reasons, why there are no good options in Syria.
For twenty years, discussions of military action were haunted by the 'quagmire' of Vietnam. Now, though Vietnam still is there in the background, it's the ghost of Iraq that shadows the debate, particularly among those who, in light of the lies by Powell and Cheney, are unwilling to accept the evidence that the Assad regime was responsible for the use of chemical weapons. This morning I heard a passionate argument that it was the Chinese and the Russians still in Syria who were responsible for the chemical attacks on behalf of the rebels. Since Russia and China are supporting the Assad regime, this seemed a strange and unconvincing argument, but the speaker claimed to have evidence to support her point. Amy Goodman, a progressive, argued that it doesn't make any difference because the U.S. used chemical weapons (napalm, agent orange) in Vietnam and supported Saddam Hussein, who was using gas against the Kurds, during the long Iran-Iraq war. Therefore, it's hypocritical for us to draw a red line against chemical weapons, and we're prohibited from acting now.
There's also the complication arising from the question as to whether the death of 1,429 Syrians from chemical weapons is somehow more morally reprehensible than the deaths of 100,000 people and the displacement of more than a million more from conventional arms.
Also shadowing the debate is the question, echoing what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, of what is the end game. What will be the effect of limited, targeted strikes? On the positive side, there are the examples of Kuwait, Bosnia, and Kosovo, where such strikes (78 days for Bosnia) were effective and the negative example of Rwanda, where our refusal to intervene is now regarded as a shameful episode in the Clinton presidency. Two days of strikes might punish Assad (is that a legitimate goal?), but they probably aren't going to change things on the ground.
There are, of course, those like Sen. John ("I never saw a nail I didn't want to hammer") McCain who want more aggressive action. He would bomb the airstrips in Syria in order to disrupt the daily supplies of arms to the government from Russia and China. He would also arm the rebels, specifically the Free Syrian Army. Convinced that we can separate the "good" rebels from the "bad" ones, he wants to send arms to the good rebels. He's perfectly assured that, since he's been to Syria and talked to representatives of the FSA, the arms won't fall into the wrong hands. His assurance that we can easily tell the difference and control the flow might be more convincing had the photo of him in Syria showed him standing with members of the FSA and a leader of one of most vicious of the rebel groups. His office later issued a statement in his defense saying that he didn't know who the man was. So much for easily distinguishing among the rebel groups.
A year and a half ago, even a year ago, it was common wisdom that Bashar Al-Assad's days were numbered; it was considered self-evident that his regime would collapse. Now, Assad is stronger than before and the rebels more disorganized and divided. So we bomb some strategic facilities for two days. Assad is still in power. Does our show of force intimidate him into being more flexible in the on-again, off-again diplomatic process? Or does it just embolden him as one who has taken what the Americans have to offer and is as strong as ever? Obama is gambling, we assume, that in addition to making a statement about the use of chemical weapons, strikes will facilitate further diplomatic efforts.
President Obama's surprise decision on Saturday to seek Congressional approval has some obvious advantages: it may consolidate support among those, usually progressives, who might tend to support the strikes but who were troubled by yet another presidential usurpation of Congressional power. Moreover, it puts each member of Congress on the record. And it may help convince a skeptical American public that air strikes are a good idea--or at least that their representatives have debated the issue and come to that conclusion. The danger, of course, is that what happened to David Cameron in the U.K. might happen here. What is Congress refuses to authorize the action? President Obama has made clear that he doesn't think he needs Congressional authorization. If they vote no, will he good ahead? If so, his actions will garner even less support within America. If not, all the leverage of our threats will be lost.
These are just a few of the thoughts buzzing around in my head the last few days. I've not even mentioned the sectarian divisions within the country or the proxy position of Syria in conflicts between the West and the East or within the Muslim communities. There's a good reason, many good reasons, why there are no good options in Syria.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
The last month or so was particularly eventful: the trip to Iowa and our marriage, the party Saturday night at Raylene and Doug's, the million dollar scholarship donation in my name, and the reassuring tests at the KU Cancer Center. Now it's time for a quieter fall routine. Mohamed is in the second week of school, and by now assignments have begun. Yesterday I downloaded page after page of forms and instructions for the green card application. The applications themselves are fairly straightforward, but each must be accompanied by a lot of supporting documentation.
Meanwhile, after a rather mild summer, we're in the middle of a two-week heat wave with daily temperatures in the high 90s and no relief at night. The Merry Maids are here now for their monthly visit; usually we'd sit on the back deck, but it's already too hot and muggy for that to be a pleasant choice, so reruns of "Frasier," all of which we've seen many times, are on in the background while I type and Mohamed is focused on his iPad.
The television runs from morning till late night; it's mainly white noise, though I think I know the words to almost every commercial (a recent report found that 41% of TV time is devoted to advertisements), a doubly sad commentary. News coverage is especially dispiriting, both for what's happening and for its focus on trivia. When Miley Cyrus's tongue gets more coverage than the situation in Syria, it's no wonder that viewers are turned off--and are turning off. I could die a happy man if I never heard the word 'twerking' again.
As you can tell, the quiet routine doesn't lend itself to writing an interesting blog. Maybe the weekend will lead to some more entertaining thoughts for Monday's entry.
Meanwhile, after a rather mild summer, we're in the middle of a two-week heat wave with daily temperatures in the high 90s and no relief at night. The Merry Maids are here now for their monthly visit; usually we'd sit on the back deck, but it's already too hot and muggy for that to be a pleasant choice, so reruns of "Frasier," all of which we've seen many times, are on in the background while I type and Mohamed is focused on his iPad.
The television runs from morning till late night; it's mainly white noise, though I think I know the words to almost every commercial (a recent report found that 41% of TV time is devoted to advertisements), a doubly sad commentary. News coverage is especially dispiriting, both for what's happening and for its focus on trivia. When Miley Cyrus's tongue gets more coverage than the situation in Syria, it's no wonder that viewers are turned off--and are turning off. I could die a happy man if I never heard the word 'twerking' again.
As you can tell, the quiet routine doesn't lend itself to writing an interesting blog. Maybe the weekend will lead to some more entertaining thoughts for Monday's entry.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Saturday night, our friends Raylene and Doug threw a party to celebrate our marriage. There were 16 invitations to our friends in the Topeka/Lawrence area, and everyone who was invited showed up. Raylene and Doug are natural hosts, who love to cook and entertain and make it all look effortless. Everyone has or had some connection with Washburn--some people we see regularly, others whom we hadn't seen in a while.
The first part of the evening consisted of tables full of various hors d'oeuvres and wine. My favorite was a three-layer dish with a chicken liver paté as the center, but there were plenty of choices, many of them exotic, for the group. After a couple of hours of mingling, good conversation, and indulging, the next part of the evening shifted from wine to champagne toasts. I got to hold the floor for a few minutes, thanks to Doug's gracious introduction, to describe both the $5.5M gift to Washburn and the scholarship in my name that some of it will fund and the three-day trip to Iowa for our wedding. Although almost everyone knew some or all of the details of our marriage journey, it was fun to put it together into a brief, but consecutive narrative.
Even though we're having our first real heat wave of the summer, some of us repaired to the back deck. In the spirit of celebration, two of the guys smoked cigars, and a couple of non-smokers decided they'd indulge in just one cigarette. It reminded me of the old days in British novels when the men retired to the drawing room for cigars after dinner, except that we weren't only men, we certainly weren't British, and the 'drawing room' was full of the summer sounds of locusts and cicadas.
The evening concluded with coffee and dessert--a flourless chocolate cake and/or Raylene's famous Italian cream cake and/or Doug's homemade bourbon peach ice cream. One, two, or three. I don't think anyone went for just one of the choices. By 11, the party guests dispersed. Mohamed and I were full and very grateful for the truly lovely and convivial evening, though we felt a tad guilty when we surveyed the tables of food, the empty plates, the glasses and cups with the remnants of wine, champagne, and coffee. A tad guilty--but not enough, I'm afraid, to stick around to help clean up. A very good time was had by all, and we're extremely thankful to Raylene and Doug for such a lavish but relaxed and happy evening.
With this entry, I'll hit 20,000 pageviews. As I said at 10,000, it's not exactly going viral, but still, it's a very gratifying number, especially since when I began, I expected the blog to be short lived. A special shoutout to the regular followers in Russia and Ukraine. I don't know any details about international readers except that the difference between those who have just stumbled across the blog and read a few entries and those who keep up regularly is clear. Here's to the next 10,000 views.
The first part of the evening consisted of tables full of various hors d'oeuvres and wine. My favorite was a three-layer dish with a chicken liver paté as the center, but there were plenty of choices, many of them exotic, for the group. After a couple of hours of mingling, good conversation, and indulging, the next part of the evening shifted from wine to champagne toasts. I got to hold the floor for a few minutes, thanks to Doug's gracious introduction, to describe both the $5.5M gift to Washburn and the scholarship in my name that some of it will fund and the three-day trip to Iowa for our wedding. Although almost everyone knew some or all of the details of our marriage journey, it was fun to put it together into a brief, but consecutive narrative.
Even though we're having our first real heat wave of the summer, some of us repaired to the back deck. In the spirit of celebration, two of the guys smoked cigars, and a couple of non-smokers decided they'd indulge in just one cigarette. It reminded me of the old days in British novels when the men retired to the drawing room for cigars after dinner, except that we weren't only men, we certainly weren't British, and the 'drawing room' was full of the summer sounds of locusts and cicadas.
The evening concluded with coffee and dessert--a flourless chocolate cake and/or Raylene's famous Italian cream cake and/or Doug's homemade bourbon peach ice cream. One, two, or three. I don't think anyone went for just one of the choices. By 11, the party guests dispersed. Mohamed and I were full and very grateful for the truly lovely and convivial evening, though we felt a tad guilty when we surveyed the tables of food, the empty plates, the glasses and cups with the remnants of wine, champagne, and coffee. A tad guilty--but not enough, I'm afraid, to stick around to help clean up. A very good time was had by all, and we're extremely thankful to Raylene and Doug for such a lavish but relaxed and happy evening.
With this entry, I'll hit 20,000 pageviews. As I said at 10,000, it's not exactly going viral, but still, it's a very gratifying number, especially since when I began, I expected the blog to be short lived. A special shoutout to the regular followers in Russia and Ukraine. I don't know any details about international readers except that the difference between those who have just stumbled across the blog and read a few entries and those who keep up regularly is clear. Here's to the next 10,000 views.
Friday, August 23, 2013
It's all good. Well, yesterday's trip to the cancer center didn't start all that well: it's exactly 75 minutes from our garage to the center, so we prepared to leave at 7 for our first 8:15 appointment, but our good intentions went for naught, and we were late leaving. Then, at the first turning, the supposedly leak-proof coffee mug fell over, slopping hot coffee on my jeans and the car seat. The drive to KC was uneventful until for some inexplicable reason we drove right past our exit from the interstate and ended up in the stockyards district. Mohamed kept asking me where to turn--I who was completely lost--until he said, "Oh, if we turn here we'll end up at the McDonald's on Rainbow," which was exactly where we needed to be. And once arrived, I got Marci, my least favorite phlebotomist. She seemed to be on her game yesterday. Sure, she dropped the needle on the floor, but she replaced it, got all the blood samples on the first try, and put in the right sized port.
It was all uphill from there. I had taken some of the revised legal documents (durable power of attorney for health care decisions and living will) with me, and within five minutes they were scanned into the system. (The day before we had taken care of the last matter at the bank, so now I have no excuse for not starting the green card application process.) After the blood work, I went for the CT scans. Usually, this takes about an hour, beginning with the drinking of two large glasses of what they keep assuring me is only water. But I was the only person there for the scans, and the tech said to drink as much as I could, but not to force myself, and he'd be back in 15 or 20 minutes. And 20 minutes later, I was lying on the table, jeans pulled down to my knees, listening to the familiar mechanical voice saying, "Breathe in. Hold your breath. Breathe."
We had a 45-minute wait before we saw Jennifer, the physician assistant whom we like a lot. Certain that she wouldn't have the results yet, we debated whether to wait until she did have them or just discuss them on a later phone call. But when we got in--and unlike Dr. Van, Jennifer is always punctual--the results of both the blood work and the scans were already there. The very good news is that the kidney tumor has not grown at all. It has changed its form a little, but it has exactly the same mass as before. After worrying about the bulge on my left side for the last weeks, we both greatly relieved by the results. Jennifer examined the bulge, which is clearly visible, but there's no real explanation for it. It hasn't grown in the last month, so we'll just keep monitoring it, but it doesn't seem related to the cancer.
The drive home was uneventful. As usual, I slept for a few minutes, and then once home, I crashed for about three hours, despite the fact that there's nothing particularly fatiguing about the tests. Mohamed brought me sushi for dinner, and since I'd lost weight since the last exam, I felt justified in finishing off the sushi with some double chocolate gelato and Chips Ahoy--the wonderful capacity of the human mind for rationalization!
It was all uphill from there. I had taken some of the revised legal documents (durable power of attorney for health care decisions and living will) with me, and within five minutes they were scanned into the system. (The day before we had taken care of the last matter at the bank, so now I have no excuse for not starting the green card application process.) After the blood work, I went for the CT scans. Usually, this takes about an hour, beginning with the drinking of two large glasses of what they keep assuring me is only water. But I was the only person there for the scans, and the tech said to drink as much as I could, but not to force myself, and he'd be back in 15 or 20 minutes. And 20 minutes later, I was lying on the table, jeans pulled down to my knees, listening to the familiar mechanical voice saying, "Breathe in. Hold your breath. Breathe."
We had a 45-minute wait before we saw Jennifer, the physician assistant whom we like a lot. Certain that she wouldn't have the results yet, we debated whether to wait until she did have them or just discuss them on a later phone call. But when we got in--and unlike Dr. Van, Jennifer is always punctual--the results of both the blood work and the scans were already there. The very good news is that the kidney tumor has not grown at all. It has changed its form a little, but it has exactly the same mass as before. After worrying about the bulge on my left side for the last weeks, we both greatly relieved by the results. Jennifer examined the bulge, which is clearly visible, but there's no real explanation for it. It hasn't grown in the last month, so we'll just keep monitoring it, but it doesn't seem related to the cancer.
The drive home was uneventful. As usual, I slept for a few minutes, and then once home, I crashed for about three hours, despite the fact that there's nothing particularly fatiguing about the tests. Mohamed brought me sushi for dinner, and since I'd lost weight since the last exam, I felt justified in finishing off the sushi with some double chocolate gelato and Chips Ahoy--the wonderful capacity of the human mind for rationalization!
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