Hemochromatosis

Ex Post Facto

2011-08-23T19:11:00.000-07:00

In the middle of June, I dropped into "Doc Holliday's" office to see what kind of condition my condition was in. As I reported earlier, all my vitals were apparently okay, save that my ferritin was up to 123, a figure that would not have stirred a muscle in my physician's countenance in years past, but since having a couple of run-ins with my sister, he gets a twitch in his left eye every time I come in for counselling on my hemochromatosis.

"Boy! 123! That seems a little high!" This from a fellow who once thought that 409 was not only a great car, but a swell ferritin count as well. "You probably ought to drop down to the Infusion Center and give them a pint."

Last week I did so, much to the delight of everyone in the building. They had a banner, a cake, and a few momentos for me as I swept into the office. "Oh! Doctor Beeblebrox! Please take Room #1! That's how we feel about you!"

There are six cubicles in the office, all of them numbered except one. #1 is not numbered. I headed toward the unnumbered cubicle a little hesitantly when the Angel of Mercilessness said, "Yes! That's it! It's how we feel about you!"

"Hummmm", I thought to myself. "So this is how it's going to be. I am the cypher of the week."

A few minutes later she breezed to my side with a rather green looking fellow. "Doctor Beeblebrox, this is Igor. He is learning how to perform phlebotomies. You don't mind if he watches what I am doing, do you?"

"No," I replied, "so long as he doesn't touch me."

"That's fine, then, because we don't let Igor touch any of the patients yet. He has a rash."

The phlebotomy went as expected. The usual amount of screaming, unconsciousness, and whimpering ensued, with only faint traces on the walls and curtains of the cubicle where the spray hit. The uniqueness of this session was in the running commentary for Igor's benefit, as AOM described in excruciating detail every step in the procedure. There were no surprises at all. I think that I was a little tense throughout.

The first procedure was to take my blood pressure. "117 over 76. Very good Zaphod! Pulse 88! Wow!" The excitement in the room was tangible. Just think. A little lysinapril makes everyone happy.

Then came the sting of stings. "Igor, we use a local anesthetic for two reasons. One, the stuff really stings a lot, and it is really fun to watch Doctor Beeblebrox's eyes dilate and bug out like they do when I give him the injection. Two, it does absolutely nothing to kill the pain in his arm when we stick the really big needle in. It just tickles me every time he passes out." I decided to pass out before she gave me the placebo.

When I came to, she was commenting to Igor about the metaphorical properties of the blood bag and various insects in the wild that feast on the warm-blooded critters in the forest. I thought that I could use another moment of unconscious quiet and promptly dozed off for a second time.

A few moments later, Igor was putting a cold can of root beer on my tray along with a package of Lorna Doones. Actually, he tried to give me two packages of Lorna Doones, I suppose to make up for the fact that he had not brought a cup of ice to go with the soda. The Angel of Mercilessness came to explain to Igor that after the phlebotomy it was necessary to take my vitals again.

"117 over 76! How extraordinary! Blood pressure.........."

"No, that can't right! Let's do it again..... 117 over 76. Okay..... Pulse..... 137!!!!?"

"Third time's the charm.......," she said, as she ramped up the equipment again.

I could not resist. "What's the problem?"

"Your pulse rate was 88 when you came in and it nearly doubled by the time we were done."

I said, "When I came in here I did not have a garden hose hooked up to my arm!"

"True, but your blood pressure did not go up. If you had been traumatized, your blood pressure would have gone through the roof, not your pulse rate," she said nervously.

"But you took a liter of blood! There is nothing to have under pressure! My heart is having to work overtime just to get any circulation at all!"

"Oh! That seems logical... Oh look!.....," she said, point to the vitals machine. "117 over 76, pulse 136..... Great! It's coming down!"

"Terrific!" I opined.

"Okay, then. If you can stand up without failing down, you can go home."

I did, but waited a week before going to see the lab-tick over at the Medical Center. I went in at noon today in order to have some blood drawn for the ferritin check. LT looked me over and decided to take my vitals. "Hummmmm! 117 over 76.... pulse 135!!!!!!!"

I said, "Don't worry about it. It's coming down."

She took the sample; I didn't flinch... a lot. Trillium was waiting for me in the foyer.

"That was quicker than a heartbeat," she said.

Yes, indeed.

Braincloud

2011-06-17T09:03:00.000-07:00

"Dr. Beeblebrox, I have good news and bad news!"

"Oh? What now?"

"I have prodded every orifice, thumped every organ, monitered every function, sampled every gland and you seem to be in fine shape."

"Is that the good news or the bad news?"

"Well, not all of that prodding, thumping, monitering and sampling is what you would call fun. The bottom line is that there is going to be less of a bottom line for me during 2011 and 2012. I had to tell my wife that we have to go to Tucumcari, New Mexico, for our vacation instead of the Grand Bahamas."

"Is that the good news or the bad news?"

"I know that you are going to post all this stuff on your blog site and that you are going to refer to me, as you aways do, as 'Doc Holliday', so I am not going to get any advertising perks from all of the funny things you have me say. You make me out to be a rather entertaining guy; I think people would like to visit with a doctor that is entertaining. But they don't know where to find me....."

"I'm sort of ambivalent about whether that is good news or bad news."

"Anyway.... Your cholesterol is fine. I think that the fish oil that you have been swilling down has actually proven beneficial. Your blood pressure is 5 over 2, and your pulse is 7, so apparently you have been doing a little bit of exercising; your blood pressure medicine seems to be working. Your creatinine is at 1.7, so you probably will not need dialysis until you are 187. Your ferritin is at 123. I know that's down 22 points from six months ago, but I think I am going to order a phlebotomy anyway just so I won't get another phone call from your sister. The last time she called I thought that she was going to come through the phone and extract my spleen with her bare hands."

"Tell me about it."

"Well,...."

"That was a rhetorical request , Doc. I know all about it already."

"OK, then. Well, I should probably tell you the good news...."

"The good news?"

"Yes..... You have a braincloud."

"A what?"

"A braincloud. It is a symptomless, incurable disease, and you have only six months to live. So I say, 'Live like a king and die like a man'".

"What do you recommend?"

"Well, there is this little island, Waponi Woo, in the south Pacific......"

"I suppose that there is a volcano."

"Yes. As a matter of fact there is."

"I suppose that the only way that Trillium and I can get there is make a raft from four water proof steamer trunks and float there."

"I know of no other way."

"How will this help me."

"It can't hurt. Oh, and there is one more thing."

"What's that?"

"You are going to need an attending physician. That's the good news."

Well, Hoopydoo....

2011-01-05T14:50:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I received a phone call from Dr. Wurlizter's office re-informing me that I had an appointment with DW on the morrow. The caller also wished to confirm that I had already taken care of my blood work.

"What blood work?" I asked.

"The blood work that was assigned to you six months ago when the appointment was made," she replied.

"No one said anything to me about making any such explorations of my bodily fluids," I rejoined.

"Oh, Dr. Beeblebrox, you say the funniest things. The appointment doesn't make much sense, does it, if the Doctor doesn't haven't any results to look at? Besides, if you will look on the back of your appointment card, you will see that there is a statement about getting laboratory work done the week before your appointment," she said with an audible smirk.

The notice was there, of course, but I was not about to let her get away with it. "What makes you think that I still have the appointment card?"

"For the same reason that you have every book that has ever come home with you during the passed 60 years. You hang on to everything that has been made from trees."

She had me there.

"If you can get to the lab in Provo before five this afternoon that will be in plenty of time". I told her that I would try.

At 11:10 StewJam and I went to play racquetball. We played one game. It lasted 40 minutes. The score was lopsidedly in my favor, but for the final 30 minutes I could not get the last point that won the game. I think that SJ decided to end my misery. And misery it was. As I sat there on the floor trying to recuperate, I had an old Bob Dylan song go through my mind over and over again. It was from "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid".

Knock, Knock, Knockin' on Heaven's Door

Over and over again.

About two in the afternoon I went over to the Swiss Chalet in Provo where they extracted several vile vials for the blood tests, including, I might add, a ferritin check. The little vixen hurt me again.

Today at 2:00, I went to DW's office. They took their pound of Discover Card flesh and then ushered me into the cubical where they weighed me (I guessed 232) where they discovered that I am 236 in regular clothes instead of my PJs. Four pounds of clothes, keys, and wallet! Who knew?

She then prepared to take my blood pressure. "117 over 79", I said.

"What?"

"That's what my blood pressure will be".

There was a moment of silence. "That is exactly what it is. How did you do that?"

"Know thyself, the philosopher saith".

Doctor Wurlitzer breezed in a moment or two later. "Everything's fine. Your creatinine is down from 2.0 to 1.8. At this rate, your kidneys will outlive you by 25 years".

"Lovely," I replied. "As long as I have something to look forward to. And my ferritin?"

He breezed out of the cubicle for a minute or two, and then breezed back in. "It is at 145. Well within acceptable limits."

"You don't know my sister," I muttered.

I have been trying to figure out how my ferritin could have gone up 25 points per month during the last three months when the previous three months it had hardly jumped a point. I suspect that it has to do with being sick for the past month. It is a case of false ferritin count caused by my body fighting the muck that I picked up while visiting the hospital. In any event, I am not particularly worried about it. I will probably have it checked in March. If it goes up again I know where to leave my excesses.

In the meantime I'll keep Knockin on Heaven's Door with StewJam. Tomorrow is another day of wheezing with a racquetball racket in my hand. With any luck at all SJ will whack me in the side of the head and take care of the next year's worth of phlebotomies.

Well, okay....

2011-01-03T07:05:00.000-08:00

I have been accosted on every side about why I have not been writing. It is because I have no grist for the mill. For three months I have been waiting for my semi-annual checkup with the kidney-me-not doctor. I am going to have my ferritin checked at that point. For the ghouls who really want some blood-letting of some sort in this posting, all I have to say is they need to take about a quart in order to run all the blood tests that I am supposed to get. So, they will get a read on my ferritin and in the process reduce my ferritin. What a dilemma! If the ferritin is high, should I get a phlebotomy? Would I not endanger my health by reducing my iron excessively? What to do....me oh my oh me!

Is that enough angst to hold you for a while? I see the doctor on Wednesday. Who knows when his nanobots will have the results! I suspect that I will not have a lot of ferritin this time around because I have been eating nothing but plastic. I need some meat!!!!!! Chris gave us an Outback gift certificate for Christmas. They will be the first to know that my ferritin is fine. You will be the second.... or so.

Well, that's the news from Lake Irony. I am feeling pallid. I need to go lie down.

Depositing Iron in a Time of Financial Crisis

2010-09-18T07:14:00.000-07:00

I have been waiting for the economy to turn around for the United States and the world, not because I have been suffering financially, because that is not the case. For 40 years I have not been investing in the stock market, I have been investing in iron and it has paid off.

Actually, only nine percent of my savings portfolio has anything at all to do with the stock market. The rest of my investments are in bonds, iron bonds. This is wisdom inasmuch as the fact remains that no matter what I do my vested interest in iron continues to go up.

Bonds have an interesting aspect to them. They are, for the most part, a stable commodity. They generally do not perform spectacularly; there are no wild swings in value. When I originally started my savings program, 60% of my investment went to guaranteed funds, usually the money market. Seldom did that money make more than 5% per year. 30% of my investments were in bonds, long term bonds I think. At some point because of the way DMBA makes its little course corrections, all of my money market funds became invested into short term bonds. These have done well, no matter what the economy has done. About four years ago I began receiving payouts on my savings and investments. Several thousands of dollars have been paid out, and yet today I have more money in my portfolio than when I started requesting the payouts.

This of course has its counterpart in hemochromatosis. For the past three years I have been actively drawing on my duodenal iron deposits and expending them like a drunken sailor. Actually, more like a drunken sailor that has been beat up, slashed, and left for dead. My iron deposits dropped like Wall Street on Black Tuesday every time I had a phlebotomy. My ferritin count starting at 827 plummeted to 46.8 as of six months ago, and three months ago it again dropped to 45.7 which I have attributed to completely eliminating chocolate from my diet.

A week or so I went into the University Clinic and had another ferritin test done. After six months of not having any phlebotomies and no chocolate, my ferritin count now stands at 58.1, up about 12 points in three months. Of course, I am curious about what I did to have the iron go up and I have concluded that it was the three wheat dogs and the two quarter pounders that I had for dinner the two nights before. At this rate I am going to be in serious trouble in about.... um... thirty years, probably on the very day that my kidneys fall out of my body. I will be kind of like the Wonderful One-Horse Shay.

A Logical Story

Have you heard of the wonderful one-horse shay,
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it--ah but stay,
I'll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits,
Have you ever heard of that, I say?

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five,
Georgius Secundus was then alive,
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.
That was the year when Lisbon-town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down
And Braddock's army was done so brown,
Left without a scalp to its crown.
It was on the terrible Earthquake-day
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.

Now in building of chaises, I tell you what,
There is always somewhere a weakest spot, -
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,--lurking still,
Find it somewhere you must and will,--
Above or below, or within or without,--
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,
That a chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear out.

But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do,
With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou,")
He would build one shay to beat the taown
'n' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';
It should be so built that it couldn' break daown,
"Fur," said the Deacon, "It's mighty plain
Thut the weakes' place mus' Stan' the strain;
'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,
Is only jest
T' make that place uz strong uz the rest."

So the Deacon inquired of the village folk
Where he could find the strongest oak,
That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke,
That was for spokes and floor and sills;
He sent for lancewood to make the thins;
The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees.
The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,
But lasts like iron for things like these;
The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum,"--

Last of its timber,--they couldn't sell 'em,
Never an axe had seen their chips,
And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue;
Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found in the pit when the tanner died.
That was the way he "put her through."
"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew!"

Do! I tell you, I rather guess
She was a wonder, and nothing less!
Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,
Deacon and deaconess dropped away,
Children and grandchildren--where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED; -it came and found
The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound.
Eighteen hundred increased by ten;--
"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came;--
Running as usual; much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arrive,
And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.

Little of all we value here
Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.
In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know but a tree and truth.
(This is a moral that runs at large;
Take it.--You're welcome.--No extra charge.)

FIRST of NOVEMBER,--the Earthquake-day--
There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,
A general flavor of mild decay,
But nothing local, as one may say.
There couldn't be,--for the Deacon's art
Had made it so like in every part
That there wasn't a chance for one to start.
For the wheels were just as strong as the thins,
And the floor was just as strong as the sills,
And the panels just as strong as the floors
And the whipple-tree neither less nor more,
And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore,
And spring and axle and hub encore.
And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt
In another hour it will be worn out!

First of November, 'Fifty-five!
This morning the parson takes a drive.
Now, small boys, get out of the way!
Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay,
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.
"Huddup!" said the parson.--Off went they.
The parson was working his Sunday's text,--
Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed
At what the--Moses--was coming next.

All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill.
First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill,--
And the parson was sitting upon a rock,
At half past nine by the meet'n'-house clock--
Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!

What do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground!
You see, of course, if you're not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once,
All at once, and nothing first,
Just as bubbles do when they burst.

End of the wonderful one-boss shay.
Logic is logic. That's all I say.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Actually, all of the iron turned to rust, the ultimate pay out. So if I disappear thirty years from now, just watch for the last withdrawal: a little pile of red dust. In the meantime: BUY IRON. You cannot lose.

Kidney Me Not, Part 2

2010-07-08T13:05:00.000-07:00

The previous episode of “Kidney Me Not” was admittedly a cliff-hanger, but a witty one with Trillium not only getting the last words, but the best ones. Now on to the really silly stuff.

When it was confirmed that I had Chronic Kidney Disease ("CKD" for those in the know), I began to feel inordinately guilty about my life-style, certain that I have been the main agent responsible for my condition. Now you may say, “Kidneys tend to fail for everyone; the older they get, the less functionality they have.” Yes, that is true, but I had been indulging myself in a way that I consciously knew was damaging to my kidneys.

In 1960 I came in contact with the writings of Dr. John A. Widtsoe, and as part of my study, I read of his considered opinion regarding the negative effects of chocolate on the human body, particularly on the kidneys. In his view, theobromine, a caffeine-like alkaloid, had a negative effect on the kidneys. As a result of reading his book, I decided that I would forego any further consumption of chocolate. For nearly 25 years I was a confirmed rider on the non-chocolate bandwagon, only occasionally eating carob bars as a substitute.

In 1984, however, at farewell party being held for our family in West Lafayette, Indiana, our hostess produced a velvet, double-chocolate, German chocolate cake baked especially in my honor. I am not certain why she did it; I was notorious for my not eating chocolate. I thought that discretion was the better part of valor and I was persuaded to consume a rather large piece.

I had fallen off the non-chocolate bandwagon in a rather dramatic fashion, bouncing three times, and then slipping under the wheels. For the next 25 years, I allowed the bandwagon to roll over the top of me, over and over again, until I was buying huge sacks of Reisens (the best chocolate confection on the planet) to put next to my computer in the den. I enjoyed every minute of every hour, of every day of those 25 years. So when the announcement came that my kidneys were turning in to shriveled lumps of coal, I really thought that I had caused the problem.

When our local organ grinder, Dr. Wurlitzer, allowed me to ask a question or two during the June visit, I specifically asked about the effects of chocolate on my kidneys. He immediately dismissed the whole notion, suggesting that dark chocolate would be good for me. “Buy a couple of bags of Reisens and put them next to your computer. They will do you good!” I gave him a rather whithering look. I was willing enough to take his advice (my saliva glands were working overtime), but I thought to myself that just maybe he was not completely in touch with the facts. As a result, I ignored the serpent's hiss and turned my back on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil Chocolate. I pursued my determination to knock out chocolate altogether. I told Trillium that just maybe this abstinence would cause my kidneys to get all fluffy and functional again. She gave me a jaded look and took another bite out of her Butterfingers bar.

Well, yesterday I received a little booklet from the American Association of Kidney Patients called “Kidney Beginnings: A Patient’s Guide to Living with Reduced Kidney Function”. I thought to myself that this was rather a quick response to my first blog on my renal problems. Everyone is reading this thing! Then I remembered that the first bills from Dr. Wurlitzer had just cleared DMBA. Those guys have probably been reading my blog and have set the AAKP on me. In any event, I want to share a few tidbits from the publication with you.

On page two the authors present “Kidneys 101”, a guide to show my kidneys are supposed to work. I quote, “Kidneys are like a 24-hour cleaning machine for your blood”. I was immediately reminded of an article that I had just read in the newspaper about a new telescopic eye implant. “Hummm! A seeing machine. At what point does a person become the Terminator? Does the telescope glow red? What next? Bionic knees, shoulders, hips, and toes? I then pictured Alice Krige’s character in "Star Trek: First Contact". Nothing left but the brain stem.

Needless to say, with all of these bizarre associations going on, I was losing focus on the text of the pamphlet. The next sentence read, “Kidneys are twin organs shaped like kidney beans.” At that point I wanted to know which came first, the kidneys or the kidney beans. Which was shaped like the other. I had a deep and abiding compulsion to go on the internet to find out who was sillier, the authors of this ridiculous pamphlet or me... I controlled myself; I kept reading. I was happy to learn at the end of the first paragraph that “People can live a near normal life with as little as 20 percent of their total kidney function.” Hooray for me, I have a 17 percent margin.

I raced ahead in the booklet to find out if there was anything I could do to help out poor Bob and Tom. The next part of the pamphlet, however, was directed at those things that I could do to help the medical profession make it through the current economic slump. Then, and only then, did the authors gave me a few hints:

1. Keep your blood pressure down, lower than 120/80. I just put on the cuff and my current blood pressure is 43/2. I guess I’m okay on that one.

2. You may need iron supplements to avoid anemia. Frankly, with hemochromatosis that does not seem to be an issue.

3. Avoid Alka Seltzer, Milk of Magnesia, and Enemas, or any combination thereof. Ew!

4. Avoid herbal medicines, folk remedies, witch doctors, and chiropractors. Well, there goes my whole health program!

5. Take it easy on protein. They suggest eating a deck of cards instead of a three ounce steak…. Or something like that… Maybe it was that a three-ounce steak is about the size of a deck of cards… Whatever…. They’re all insane.

6. Exercise appropriately. I get out of bed in the morning and I climb back in at night. That’s enough aerobic exercise for me.

7. Limit phosphorus. I have to anyway. If I don’t, I glow in the dark.

8. Watch your potassium. Bummer! I like French-fried potassium. It’s the best!

9. Be careful about fluids. Quoting the manual, “Remember fluid is found in such unexpected things as jello, watermelon, gravy, sherbet, and many other places like outdoor ponds, irrigation systems, swimming pools, and kitchen faucets.” Wow! Everywhere you turn!

Trillium tells me that I ought to avoid magnesium, too, in addition to the “Milk of” recommended in #3. How does this all affect my diet? Where would I acquire vasty amounts of magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium?

CHOCOLATE! Saith the deponents.

So… no Reisens; no velvet, double-chocolate, German chocolate cake; no licking my wife’s fingers after she eats a Butterfingers candy bar; and, horror of horrors, no tri-tip steak, double-dipped in hot fudge sauce. Life has just ground to a halt.

Oh! And by the bye. I just received the report on the ferritin check that I had a week ago. I am now at 45.7, a drop of 1.1. This is without any phlebotomies for three months. According to “nutitiondata.com”, an ounce of chocolate contains six times the amount of iron that an ounce of sirloin has. Hmmmm! Have we discovered a ….

Whatever!

I am Ironman - A blood drive coordinator's story

2010-06-30T15:05:00.000-07:00

A week ago a writer for the American Red Cross asked me if I would consent to be interviewed by him for an article to appear in their Newsletter, Vital Signs. I said that I would be happy to oblige him on Wednesday afternoon at 2:00. The fellow was prompt, pleasant, and seemingly engaged. We spoke for about an hour. He took copious notes. He took copious pictures. He subsequently wrote copious copy for his newsletter. I include the entire text of his resulting article, carefully modifying the names of everyone concerned so as to preserve the carefully crafted avatar that I have developed during the last two and half years. I also have added a little commentary to clarify some of the daft things that he said that I said. I have been interviewed by reporters many times before and I was not surprised at the innocuous misrepresentations which managed to creep into the article. The title of his piece that serves as the title of this posting was of his own devising. Not bad, but it has been used before…. by me.

As a writer and American Red Cross blood drive coordinator, Zaphod Beeblebrox’s stories about his battle with hemochromatosis goes to show that sometimes life truly is stranger than fiction.

Actually, the truth is that fiction is stranger and funnier than life. Those who are familiar with my vapid style of writing are painfully aware that all of the things that I say about my battle with hemochromatosis cannot possibly be true. It is also true that my comments about the medical professionals with whom I deal border on libel. Hence, the carefully disguised names of people and places, including my own identity and address.

After doctors told Beeblebrox in 2008 about his dangerously high iron levels, the 67-year-old decided to create a website to document his thoughts and experiences which included frequent therapeutic phlebotomies. His writings, fused with a wry sense of humor, helped him deal with the fears surrounding the seriousness of the hereditary condition.

You know, I am really an old guy, but in August of 2008 I was only 66. I realize that a year’s worth of error is not a tragedy, but come on… a year’s a year! The only time I even mentioned my current age to the interviewer, I said that I was 68. Even that was not entirely true because I do not move into that ethereal realm of ancientness until the middle of July. How he worked the math on that one I cannot imagine. If he looked at me and said, "That guy is really 67", he would have had to conclude that I was 65 when I began the blog. If he looked at me and said, “That guy isn’t 68; he doesn’t look a day over 67”, then we would have to conclude that that he was referring to my age at the time he interviewed me when he said that I was a “67-year-old”. If that is the case, we ought to send this guy down to the county fair to guess people’s weight.

Not long after the diagnosis, Beeblebrox was asked to help coordinate Red Cross blood drives at his local church. While he couldn’t give himself, he was eager to recruit others who could. He also knew the assignment would make great fodder for his website called Hemochromatosis Tales.

“Hemochromotosis Tales!!!” This guy’s better at titles than I am, and far more accurate. Still I think that the subtitle, “and the Renal Road to Happiness” constitutes some of the finest prose I have ever generated.

“During the last year before my mother’s death, she must have had at least 100 [blood] transfusions which helped extend her life. That extra year when she received blood gave her extra time to get certain things squared away and taken care of prior to her passing,” said Beeblebrox. “It’s not hard to see the value in blood donation. My wife is a nurse, my mother-in-law needed blood when she had a hip replacement, so almost everywhere I look, I see real-life examples of why it’s so important for people to give blood.”

This is mostly true. I did, however, go into great detail about how my mother probably contracted the osteomyelitis that eventually destroyed her bone marrow. It was an unabashed frontal attack on the shoddy medical treatment that she received when she was having several of her lumbar in her spine fused. I suppose that even without names and places the ARC would have been looking at serious law suits from the AMA and other groups had they been as articulate as myself in his article. As an act of verisimilitude, the writer inserted a [bracketed] word to show that he was quoting me exactly. I do not know nor do I care if I said "blood transfusions" or not. My question is, "Why would he have to clarify what I meant by 'transfusion' when his audience was a pack of blood drive coordinators?" What other kind of transfusions are there? It is certainly not going to be confused with transfusions of doughnuts, Lorna Doones, or Barq's Root Beer.

In addition to witnessing how blood helped his mother, Beeblebrox noted that his involvement with the Red Cross started at an early age in Garden Grove, CA where he learned first aid and how to swim from Red Cross-certified instructors. And when Southern California wildfires raged throughout the counties near his family’s home, he vividly recalls the local Red Cross volunteers who would help fill water tanks to assist with the firefighting efforts.

Actually, I was quite specific about Carbon Canyon as the place where the wildfires were and the fact that the ARC had been handing out doughnuts. My friends and I were the ones filling the water tanks. Maybe the truth of the matter was that the ARC never has dealt in doughnuts and so my author had to have the workers doing something that seemed more reasonable. All I know is that the ARC no longer deals in Lorna Doones and Barq’s Root Beer. I learned First Aid from an ARC manual as the result having finished all of the fifth grade requirements by December and the teacher had to set me to work on things that would keep me out of trouble. This was, of course, at Richard Gird Elementary School in Chino, California, and not Garden Grove. I learned to swim at the Brea Plunge, where all of the instructors were ARC trained. My Swimmer’s Card was an ARC card. This was not in Garden Grove either. The Garden Grove reference was to my experience as a thirty-year-old donating blood to the ARC. I told him of my phobia of needles and my need to lie on the cot for 45 minutes snarfing Lorna Doones and root bear while I recovered. Eventually the ARC asked me not to return because I was not what you would call cost effective. His eyes may have glazed over at that point.

Nowadays, Zaphod Beeblebrox’s iron levels are higher than the average person’s, but low enough that he doesn’t worry every day about the potential damage to his liver, pancreas, or heart as a result of iron overload.

“Nowadays!!!” What a quaint word. I like that word! That is a terrific word! It’s the kind of word that puts grey-hair on an aspiring writer’s head. Bravo!!!!

As Beeblebrox prepares for the next Red Cross blood drive in September, he still writes about his experiences and is proud to say that in under a one-year time period, the number of units collected at his church drive have more than doubled since he took over as the blood drive coordinator.

True! I am the darling of the ARC!

We’d like to thank Zaphod Beeblebrox for his hard work in coordinating successful blood drives as well as his tales of iron and irony. To learn more about iron or other topics related to blood donation, check out the Health and Wellness section on our website at redcrossblood.org.

Go ahead. Check it out, but it is not as funny as I am…nor as strange.

Kidney Me Not; Part One

2010-06-17T08:57:00.000-07:00

I came away from my last visit with “Doc Wurlitzer” in May somewhat morose. I had hoped to find out what was up with my kidneys and what I could do about it. In my attempt to bring the good doctor up to speed, I rattled on for almost 30 minutes explaining my medical history as I understood it. I can only remember three things that he said on that occasion.

1. “That’s nice.”
2. “Give blood and other bodily fluids.”
3. “See you next month.”

The only other sound that I heard was “Ka-ching!”

I went down to the lab where a vicious little vixen nearly amputated my arm trying to get blood. I was also given rather exacting specific instruction regarding the manner in which I should donate my “other bodily fluid” (henceforth to be known as “OBF”). There was no chattiness, no humor, no faint hint of a rumor of friendliness, and not even a glimmer of a possibility of a smile. I was in the stainless steel medical version of Purgatory (or worse). All this in American Fork, Utah, the most cheerful little town in the northern hemisphere. I decided that the next time I went to visit the Grand Siete, I would get what I wanted.

Last Monday at 11:30 in the Provo office I was to meet with Doc Wurlitzer again, as requested in his third utterance above. When I arrived at the desk, I pulled out my appointment card.

“Is your address still 10345 West 20190 North in Panquitch, Utah?”

“I don’t think so,” I replied.

“Who are you again?”

“Dr. Zaphod Beeblebrox”.

“Snorquel Fortenbras?”

“No, Zaphod Beeblebrox”.

“Hortenfrax Snurflhwbbetnmomrtn?” she queried with a puzzled look.

“No. Trying using the spelling on the card,” I said.

“Oh…! Right…!” She pattered away on her computer for a while. “You aren’t in here. Are you a new patient?”

“No,” I said, “I’m rather an old one. I filled out my paperwork almost three months ago in this very office. I met last month with “Doc Wurlitzer” in the Omericon Fark office.” I hoped that my employing the Utah Valley dialect would facilitate matters.

She immediately went into some sort of confab with her fellow receptionists and for about six and a half minutes I was on tenterhooks while they attempted to find out who and what I was. Finally she came back to the counter.

“Dr. Beeblebrox?”

“I think that would be me.”

“Norgleburt Beeblebrox?”

“No, Zaphod. Norgleburt is my second cousin nine times removed. Everyone confuses us with each other. Don’t feel bad, it has been going on for decades.”

“OH! I see now. Is your address still 1842 South Felenctrum Way, Sea of Tranquility, Moon?”

“Close enough.”

“Okay. If you will just take a seat, the nurse will be with you shortly.”

A while later a sweet young thing ushered Trillium and me into an examining room where she took my blood pressure. “120 over 84. Is that about right?”

“Well, day before yesterday it was 90 over 73.”

“You’re an excitable sort when you visit the doctor’s office, huh?”

“Yes he is,” replied Trillium.

It’s a Boy!.... And Another Boy!... and a Large.. um.. Small Girl!

2010-04-22T08:25:00.000-07:00

You will note that I have added a new subtitle to this blog; i.e. “And the Renal Road to Happiness”. Inasmuch as my ferritin level is now at 48.8 and inasmuch as I will go three months before I have it checked again, the blog contents will be even more bland and vacuous than they generally are. I won’t be tripping down to the Infusion Center (where they all hate me because I dragged a Surveyor from the parent company through one of my linguistic grist mills). I will not see “Doc Holliday” for another year (I am not the cash cow I used to be). The Lab Tick will not be drawing my blood as frequently as in the past (and we were getting on so well!). So what to do? Jabber and nonsense about kidney disease.

I decided to go with “Doc Wurlitzer”, a nephrologist who works down at the Central Utah Clinic, a place that looks something like a Swiss ski chalet. It is just west of the Infusion Services office. The Lady in Red and Chester were watching from the roof of their building as I pulled into the other parking lot. There was a lot of shouting and stamping of feet as I walked into the chalet; I believe that they miss me already.

The receptionist was pleasant and was anxious to hook me up to a siphon. “We need a quart or two to find out why you are here…. Oh! You have such lovely veins!”

“That’s what all the girls tell me. I know why I am here. I have too much creatinine, and other stuff that I can’t pronounce properly, floating around in my blood. Here is the paperwork from “Doc Holliday’s” office. The analysis is no more than a week old.”

She looked at me blankly for a moment and then said, “Oh, so it is. What a disappointment! You have such lovely veins…my, my, my…”

I asked her when I could see the doctor. She said, “Oh, not for about six weeks. He is a busy fellow with all of the degenerative kidney disease going about. But I wouldn’t worry about any of this for a while. According to this creatinine report, we could schedule you for April 17, 2040 and you would still get in under the wire.”

“So you will let me know what I am to do next.”

“Yes,” she said, with eyes fixed on the inside of my left elbow, “I will let you know what you are to do next…. You have such lovely…..” I slipped out of the side door and ran for my life.

About a week later, I received a phone call from the Imaging Department of the Clinic. “Hello, Dr. Beeblebrox? Dr. Wurlitzer’s office called us to have you come in for an ultrasound on your kidneys and your bladder. Could you drop by tomorrow sometime?”

I said that I could.

“In anticipation for the ultrasound, could you please drink 64 ounces of water a half an hour before you come in? It is easier to see your kidneys if you are bloated.”

I sloshed into the Imaging Center about 10:30 the next morning. Scylla and Charybdis were waiting for me. I have no idea why I came up with those two names (neither one of them looked like a whirlpool and they only had one head each). Scylla was an intern (or an extern; the medical students can’t seem to keep their “-terns” straight). Inasmuch as she was new to the game, she was the one who was tapped to slather the gel on my left side. “Oooooo! You have such lovely……”

“Now cut that out!” I shouted.

They fiddled around for about an hour; sounding me out here, then sounding me out there. Finally, Charybdis said, “Well, it’s official. You have twin boys. What are you going to call them?”

“Tom and Bob,” I replied.

“Oh! Thomas and Robert. How lovely!”

“No, Tom and Bob. Our relationship has been and will continue to be rather intimate and informal. How are they doing, by the way?”

“Well looky here! Do you see these blue dots? That is blood coming toward us. Do you see the red dots? That is blood going away from us. We use the latest in Doppler technology here.”

I was impressed. “What is that little white smudge right there?”

“Oh! That’s Andromeda.”

Then they pounced upon my bladder. Remember the 64 ounces of water they had me drink before the procedure? The whole gallon was inside. After a while Charybdis said, “Would you like to relieve yourself?”

Silly girl!

Then they commenced again to check out how my bladder was doing. “It’s smaller!” the two shouted. “Wow! Yippy! Wonder of Wonders! Miracle of Miracles!”

Finally, once the exuberance settled down, I said, “I have come up with a name for my bladder. I am going to call her ‘Ginger’.”

The most that Scylla and Charybdis could tell me was that my kidneys looked fine. When degeneration is in full bloom, Tom and Bob would have looked like shelled walnuts. The boys look like fluffy little tribbles. Ginger was big in the beginning and then became small after I returned from the bathroom. What could be better than that?

Beam Me Up, Scotty!

2010-04-11T14:54:00.000-07:00

In 1936, the Queen Mary was commissioned into service as an Atlantic Ocean passenger ship. In 1967 she was decommissioned and took up residence in Long Beach, California, where my sister Judie lives. As part of the renovation as a public attraction, the three smoke stacks were removed. They were, and are 36 feet long and 23 feet wide, 62 to 70 feet high, made of one inch thick steel. During her many years of service, the smokestacks were painted at least 30 times. When the stacks were removed and placed on the dock, they crumbled into paint chips, the one inch of steel having long since rusted away. Needless to say, those responsible for replacing the stacks were somewhat dismayed.

Let’s talk about dismay. When I started this blog two or so years ago, my ferritin level (somewhat analogous to the steel lining of the Queen Mary’s smoke stacks) was at 837. With pedestrian steadiness, “Doc Holliday” and myself have cautiously reduced that level. Four or five months ago, I stood at 127; a month or so later, it went back up to 137. I then took matters into my own hands again and had a phlebotomy every month for the first three months of this year. On Friday I went into to see the good doctor and found that my ferritin was now at 48.8! How about that! Everybody who is anybody ought to be happy with that. Friday was also my annual examination and when “Doc Holliday” took off my smoke stacks to see how things were going, he discovered something else amiss. Alas! Alack! Woe is me!

Two years ago, when I had my first serious examination in many years, I noted that the laboratory had exclaimed with some enthusiasm that my Calcium, Creatinine, and Blood Urea Nitrogen were somewhat elevated, indicative of degenerating kidney function. When Trillium and I asked “Doc Holliday” about it, he said, “Well, I not particularly concerned about that now. What I am concerned about is that you are becoming a fat little bunny. You need to walk about; you need to knock off the sweets; you need to eat a bushel of broccoli a day.”

“What about Guacamole Bacon Cheese Burgers, with Emperor-sized fries and drinks (a bushel of potatoes and a 30-gallon drum of root beer)?”

The response was about what you would expect.

One of “Doc Holliday’s” charms is that he generally telegraph’s his concerns and advice by how he dresses and how he combs his hair. If He wishes to chastise me a little, he always comes into my cubicle dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and tie, and a name tag that says “President Holliday”. If he thinks I am going to react negatively, he dresses like a home base umpire. Friday he was wearing a grass skirt, a shark tooth necklace, and had his hair woven into long shiny dreadlocks, waving a large rattle in each hand. Apparently in the confines of his bamboo hut, the good doctor had reviewed my blood work for the last three years and had observed that for each of the last three analyses, my creatinine levels had gone up steadily, one tenth of a point every year.

“At this rate, it won’t be long before you are on a dialysis machine! But I can’t figure it out. You have no indication of diabetes; all of the other blood indicators are just fine. For your creatinine to creep up like this is unnerving; and doubly so because there doesn’t seem to be an explanation for it”. He then shook his rattles a couple of times and turned back to the computer screen. “I think that I am going to send you to a nephrologist, a specialist who knows everything there is to know about the renal system. He will take a lot of blood samples and urine samples… so much so that you probably will not need a phlebotomy until next March”.

Oh! Joy!

I now have a list of local members of the nephrology clan here in Utah Valley and will have to make a decision soon about what I am going to do. I asked “Doc Holliday” when I would be ripe for my first dialysis. He said when my creatinine is at 5.0. I asked him what it was in 2008, 2009, and 2010. He said, “In 2008, it was 1.7; the following year it was at 1.8; and now it is at 1.9. This is a bad trend!” I was really dismayed, until I started doing the math. If my creatinine increases at the same rate, I will be ready for the first blood filter on my 98th birthday! In the meantime everyone is telling me that I have to stop eating chocolate, stop eating potato chips, no more French fries, no soda, no ibuprophin…. In other words, I may just have to ask Jack Kervorkian to drop by tomorrow for a little house call. The terminally ill get to have morphine; why can’t I have a potato deep fried in vegetable oil? It’s cheaper and I will feel better about it.

Monday I will do the doctor hunt. I have five on my list, three of them with names I can’t begin to pronounce. The other two have possibilities: Doctors Terry Wurlitzer and Lenny McCoy. Wurlitzer’s motto is, “There isn’t an organ I can’t fix”; McCoy has emblazoned next to his name, “Take two of these and see me in the next Millennium”.

I may just go to Dr. McCoy. I want to ask him about my liver; you know, because of all of the problems with iron-overloading. I can hear it all now, “Dagnabbit, Zaphod, I’m a physician, not a blacksmith!”

I, Contact

2010-03-18T10:29:00.000-07:00

This week is filled with activity, but not much excitement. On Tuesday we held the first of our two semi-annual blood drives at the Church, for the which I have some guiding responsibility. I was hoping for some sort of episode on which I could train my verbal cannon and fill up another posting by regaling my readers with another series of events bordering on the macabre. No joy! It was as sedate and as sober an event as anyone could possibly want. The workers from the Red Cross were efficient and effective. Nobody fainted (as far as I could tell). There were no blood arcing contests by any of the participants. I had plenty of helpers, so much so that I had very little to do. I sat in the same chair from 1:00 until 8:30 reading and writing, making small talk from time to time; all in all, I was bored out of my mind.

I tried to make things happen, in order to have a little excitement. When I saw that the snacks were lacking, complaining bitterly that there were no Lorna Doones or bottles of root beer, the captains of industry immediately ran out to the store and supplied the unnecessary…. for me…. and no one else. What I had intended to be a joke was taken seriously, attended to by a gravity of spirit so overwhelming that I felt embarrassed that I had even mentioned the things. I did drink all of the root beer and munched the Lorna Doones…. I wasn’t all that broken up about it.

No one was interested in my Hemochromatosis Tales. I suppose that I have become a marked man. As soon as I mentioned anything about Iron Over-loading, my correspondents found other things with which to entertain themselves. For the rest of the night I received furtive glances from various parts of the room. “No-Eye-Contact-With-That-Guy” seemed to be the policy. I have been trying to figure out if the response was the result of their embarrassment in the fact that they are unable to take my blood, even though there is nothing wrong with it, or whether it is simply the fact that I have become a fatuous old man that everyone wants to avoid. Hard to tell….

I filled out my little report of the event and shipped it off to the interested parties yesterday. I am done with this for another six months. I had hoped to have three months worth of stuff to write about, but I am going to have to sink a sarcasm-well elsewhere.

Friday there is to be a related activity. The Scout Committee (of which I am the Chair) decided that the boys needed to have a fund-raiser. The last one was in July when we spent hours slaving over Coleman stoves making breakfast in the park for about 150 people. We cleared 37 cents…… Actually it was more than that, but I hurt so badly afterwards that it would have required a profit of more than $357,000.00 for me to have felt some satisfaction. Friday night we are holding a tri-tip dinner to which the same parsimonious crowd is coming. Everyone likes my tri-tip steaks, so I am certain that we will fill the cultural hall of the Church.

Now this is really an untimely event. I am on the cusp of an iron-reducing moment in my life. I had a phlebotomy in January and in February, and I am planning another one next Monday, so that by my sister’s birthday on the 2nd of April I can announce that my ferritin count is below 100 points. Between me and that goal is eighty pounds of tri-tip steak that I will be grilling on Friday. I usually do not sit down to eat at these kinds of events, in part because I want to make certain that everyone else is content before I partake. The other reason for not sitting down with everyone else is that I generally find myself sampling the cooking along the way in order to make sure that it is coming out right, and I end up being really not all that hungry. I wonder if there is iron in the smoke of grilling meat. If there is, I am in serious trouble.

As an aside… I went to Costco last week to check on the availability of the steaks. I spoke with one of the butchers. He indicated that that they should have several cases available on any given day so there wouldn’t be any problem. He said that it would get more difficult to supply tri-tips as the grilling season progressed because it was such a popular cut of meat. Then he volunteered a very interesting piece of information.

“You know, Zaphod, before 2002 we could not give tri-tip roasts and steaks away. Nobody knew anything about them. I wonder what happened?”

I smiled and replied, “I moved here from Albuquerque”.

“What?”

“I moved here from Albuquerque in 2000. It took a couple of years, but my culinary counsel has caught on here in Utah Valley. Tri-tip steak is the best grilling meat on the planet and I single-handedly brought it into fashion”.

“No!”

“Yes!”

“No!” he said again, and then walked away looking over his shoulder furtively and would not make eye-contact with me thereafter.

I think I have become annoying on several topics.

Well, all of this preoccupation about my iron levels is undoubtedly going to raise my blood pressure, the blood drive and the dinner are going to wear me out, so that on Monday when I appear at the Infusion Center, I will probably end up hosing down the entire facility with my B+ personality. Once they try to tap into the mother-load, I’ll probably not be able to make eye-contact with them either.

My Liver is Warm and Moist

2010-02-25T10:16:00.000-08:00

Several of my correspondents complained bitterly that my last blog wasn’t very funny. “We read this drivel because it is generally humorous. We want more humor. Don’t blather on about numerology, or aviation, or anything like that. We want to know about your suffering, how excruciating it is, and whether or not we can join in at some point with sticks or clubs of some kind. Come on! More humor!” Humor it is, then.

Before the 18th century, illnesses and plagues were far more humorous than they are now. The Greeks and the Romans felt that every malaise was caused by an imbalance between four different kinds of humors: black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood, closely related to four elements of earth, water, fire, and air respectively. If a person had too much of one humor, his whole personality changed. Too much blood, a person was sanguine. Too much phlegm, one was phlegmatic. If you had too much yellow bile, you were choleric. Too much black bile, and you were melancholic. If you had too much of all of these you looked like a post-apocalyptic tick with a goiter problem.

Every part of human existence was governed by these humors:

Humour: Blood, Yellow bile, Black bile, Phlegm
Season: spring, summer, autumn, winter
Element: air, fire, earth, water
Organ: liver, gall bladder, spleen, brain/lungs
Qualities: warm & moist,warm & dry, cold & dry, cold & moist
Ancient name: sanguine, choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic
Modern: artisan, idealist, guardian, rational
Ancient characteristics: courageous, hopeful, amorous; easily angered, bad tempered; Despondent, sleepless, irritable; calm, unemotional

If you have some blood to squander (if not, you can use some of mine), set a cup full in the shade for a while, about an hour. After a bit you will find that the stuff will separate out into the four humors. At the bottom, there will be a great blop of gunk that is, in this system, called “black bile”. Right above that is a mess of red blood cells that is called “blood” (who knew?). Above that layer will be a layer of white blood cells called “phlegm” by the ancients; a “buffy coat” by those in the know. At the top of the liquid will be a clear yellow serum layer, “yellow bile” for those who have been around for more than three hundred years.

If this blog is nothing else, it is educational, even if it is high-handed and wrong-headed. Since this is a blog that is essentially humorous as well, I think that it would be important to the readers to know how they fit into the scheme of things. What follows is an outline of each of the four personalities.

Sanguine (top left)
The Sanguine temperament personality is fairly extroverted. People of a sanguine temperament tend to enjoy social gatherings and making new friends. They tend to be creative and often day dream. However, some alone time is crucial for those of this temperament. Sanguine can also mean very sensitive, compassionate and thoughtful. Sanguine personalities generally struggle with following tasks all the way through, are chronically late, and tend to be forgetful and sometimes a little sarcastic. Often, when pursuing a new hobby, interest is lost quickly--when it ceases to be engaging or fun.

Choleric (top right)
A person who is choleric is a doer. They have a lot of ambition, energy, and passion, and try to instill it in others. They can dominate people of other temperaments, especially phlegmatic types. Many great charismatic military and political figures were cholerics.

Melancholic (bottom right)
A person who is a thoughtful ponderer has a melancholic disposition. Often very kind and considerate, melancholics can be highly creative – as in poetry and art - and can become occupied with the tragedy and cruelty in the world. A melancholic is also often a perfectionist. They are often self-reliant and independent.

Phlegmatic (bottom left)
Phlegmatics tend to be self-content and kind. They can be very accepting and affectionate. They may be very receptive and shy and often prefer stability to uncertainty and change. They are very consistent, relaxed, rational, curious, and observant, making them good administrators and diplomats. Unlike the Sanguine personality, they may be more dependable.

Now if you want to change your personality, all you would have to do is remove some of the excess humor. For a bilious personality, for example, you would need to remove excess bile. In order to do that, the standard practice was to put inverted hot steel cups on your bare skin. If that doesn’t get rid of bad humor, nothing will. In order to reduce sanguinity, removing blood is a good thing. I went in for a therapeutic phlebotomy this last week and will have another in a month. I am going to get to a 47 ferritin count even if it kills me and everyone around me. Note the following personality changes that are sure to accompany this bloodletting:

The Sanguine temperament personality is fairly extroverted: (Don’t expect to see me anytime soon.)

People of a sanguine temperament tend to enjoy social gatherings and making new friends: (I have become a social pygmy and am determined to continue in that vein.)

They tend to be creative and often day dream: (I am sleeping in longer with less guilt.)

However, some alone time is crucial for those of this temperament: (I’ll be thinking of you, probably in desultory terms, however.)

Sanguine can also mean very sensitive, compassionate and thoughtful: (Don’t count on Mr. Nice Guy any time soon.)

Sanguine personalities generally struggle with following tasks all the way through, are chronically late, and tend to be forgetful and sometimes a little sarcastic: (Well, let’s not get carried away here; Chester didn’t take out that much blood!)

Often, when pursuing a new hobby, interest is lost quickly--when it ceases to be engaging or fun: (There better be some nice comments or I’m outta here!)

So, there you have it. More humor about humor than any of you could have possibly desired. As I said above, I will have another pint taken in March and then I am off to my annual visit with “Doc Holliday” where I will be poked, prodded, and punctured. No doubt I will come away with “hot cup” circles everywhere.

Five Cards Short of a Full Deck

2010-02-08T15:06:00.000-08:00

Of late I have become intrigued by the number “47”. In some respects it reflects much of the wide expanse of my life.

When I was a little boy, I had a friend who lived up the hill from me. His father was an oilman who had spent a long time in the Philippine Islands. Some of my best stamps from those islands I originally obtained my friend’s father. I rode on the handlebars of Dick’s bike long before I had my own bicycle and we spent a lot of time in his back yard playing army with his plastic soldiers and plastic airplanes. I had none of these of my own; Dick seemed to have an endless supply. One of our favorite activities was to figure out ways to blow up the soldiers and planes in spectacular ways. Dick had several hard plastic bombers and fighters that were meant to take anything that a nine year old could inflict upon them. We tried putting firecrackers inside of the bombers; there was a lot of noise and smoke, but no destruction. They were tough toys for the most part, but they did not respond well to fire; or should I say that they responded well to fire. Only when we actually used a cigarette lighter on one of the wings of a model P-47 did we have any results. Once the wing was in flames, the plastic began to melt and drip away. Richard and I would take turns flying the plane about the yard, leaving drops of burning debris behind until the whole thing was consumed. That was my introduction to World War II.

There were other planes, the names of which were graced by the number 47. The B-47 was the Air Force’s answer to the Soviet nuclear threat against the United States during the 1950’s. It was the precursor to the B-52. What I remember of the B-47’s was etched across the sky of my Southern California home in the ubiquitous vapor trails that appeared everywhere. This was long before commercial travel was based upon jet engines, so every one of us boys knew that those planes were part of the military establishment defending us from the “commies”, as we affectionately referred to the Russians.

My up-front and personal contact with a “47” plane of any kind was the C-47, a transport plane dating from World War II. It was a useful and dependable plane, but was as ugly as a mud fence. While I was stationed in Duluth, Minnesota, during the early 1960’s I had many occasions to fly from one station to another to support our squadron of F-106 interceptors. Most of those flights were on board a C-47, or a Gooney Bird, as we liked to call them. The pilots of those planes were fighter pilot “wannabes’ and did their best to convince their passengers that they could fly their transports just as wild and wooly as our squadron officers. Thus, the takeoffs and landings were always just bearable. It usually took me the better part of an hour to recover from one of the C-47 landings.

When I left the military in 1964, the Vietnam War was just beginning to heat up. The CH-47, a version of the Chinook helicopter, was the mainstay of the US and Vietnamese artillery units trying to establish heavy fire from elevated positions. I think of the countless hours of video reports that I watched during that war, many of them at the same time my brother-in-law was serving there. The CH-47s were in most of the videos that I saw during that time. At one point there were more than 750 CH-47s in operation in combat zones in Vietnam. More than 200 of them were shot down.

These plane numbers began to capture my imagination. Believe it or not, I actually Googled the rest of the entire alphabet followed by the number 47 in order to find some more. There were other combat aircraft from other nations of varying types and serviceability. There were different sorts of submarines and guns, engines of all kinds, and other equally entertaining items. None of them commended themselves to me. At that point, I decided that I would try numbers in combination with "47".

The first attempt was “047”. This was the result at Google:

The ferritin count that Zaphod Beeblebrox is attempting to achieve by having a pint of blood sucked out of him every two months. It will never work because he is absorbing iron from his car every time he drives it.

The second attempt was “147”. This was the result at Google:

The actual ferritin count that Zaphod Beeblebrox had on the 1st of February 2010 as indicated by the letter that he received on the 6th of February 2010 from the University of Utah Medical Center. If he ever hopes to drop the third digit in his results he will either have to spend some time flying one of his favorite “47”s in a war zone or have more phlebotomies than he has currently scheduled.

I think it’s time to visit the Lady in Red again. The surprise will do her good.

I’ve Got Nothing

2010-01-15T10:43:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I headed off to the Infusion Center for my first therapeutic phlebotomy of 2010. I was hoping for a great deal of idiocy to transpire so that I could employ my usual augmentary sarcasm to fluff up another posting. It was not to be, McGee.

I called up the place about 11:04 AM and said that I would like to come in for my usual dance with the bloodticks. The girl on the other end of the line said, “Well, Zaphod, when would you like to be here?” I told her about 11:07 AM. There was silence for a moment; it was a joke after all, but the train was a little late getting to the station. Finally she said, coldly, “How would 2:00 this afternoon be?” I told her that I would be there with bells on. There was another short pause. “Who is this Belzon character? He’s not on my list. Does he want a phlebotomy too?” I told her that Belzon was my secret friend and that he like to watch as my life-force slipped away into a plastic bag. “Alrighty, then!” she said. “We’ll look forward to seeing you both!” I thought that unlikely, both as to the “looking forward” and the “seeing”.

I arrived a little early; I didn’t have anything else to do. I saw the “Lady in Red”, “Chester”, and “Gory” and I concluded that I was, once again, doomed. “Chester” had performed the last phlebotomy and I still had the scar from her fiddling. Imagine! Two months after she poked me I can still see where the pipe went in. “Gory” was attending to a young woman across the way who looked quite stricken and concerned about what was going on. I tried to cheer her up.

“There is one thing you can say about all this,” I began. “No matter what, this is the worst thing that is going to happen to you today”.

She laughed and thereafter completely ignored me. (Actually, that is not entirely true. I kept being noisily cheerful the whole time I was there and when the angels of death were not hovering about, she actually smiled.)

I was afraid that if “Chester” showed up to work me over, I would say something churlish about the pipe-fitters union and the scar tissue at the elbow joint of my right arm. Fortunately for everyone concerned, it was the “Lady in Red” who dragged in the paraphernalia. I almost didn’t recognize her; she was dressed in blue. “Aren’t you the ‘Lady in Red’?” I asked.

“Only on Fridays. On Thursdays, I am the ‘Blue Girl’ in honor of my great ancestors Jonathan Buttall and Thomas Gainsborough. On Wednesdays, I wear some other color, as well as Tuesdays and Mondays. Sometimes I am ‘Mauve-woman’, other times I am ‘Puce-lass’, and occasionally the “Angel of Mercy’. Thursdays and Fridays are pretty well set in stone, however. The dye is cast, you might say. Hehehehehe!”

She placed a absorbent two-foot square pad under my left arm, and then draped herself with a gigantic plastic drop cloth. “Not feeling particularly optimistic today?” I queried.

“One can never be too careful with you, Zaphod. Your blood is under so much pressure that sticking you with a needle is like poking a dead cow with a stick. Do you know that you are the only person who comes in here whose blood pressure is higher after the phlebotomy than before.”

“It must be the company I keep,” I replied.

While all this chatter was going on, “Blue-girl” had prepped my arm, shot me with anesthesia, and had driven in the silver spike. All of this transpired without me feeling a thing; there was no sting of any kind. The blood flowed freely, according to my attendant. In a matter of a few moments she had extracted 575 ml of my sanguinity. “Blue-girl” had me hold the cotton swab in place after she pulled out the needle. “Do you think that I could hit the girl across the hall if I held my arm just right?”

“There is no question in my mind!”

The root beer was warm; someone had failed to fill the refrigerator. Fortunately, there was plenty of ice and not much time passed before I was munching my Lorna Doones and swilling my Barq’s. By the time I was finished, there was not a soul in the office. I wondered where the three had gone. I walked out to the parking lot and for some reason turned around to look at the building. “Blue-girl”, “Gory”, and “Chester” were on the roof watching me. I waved. Blue-girl shouted to me.

“Each time you come we have an office pool. The bet has to do with how close you will get to your car before you pass out. I won today!” She was jumping up and down like a school girl.

I wonder what sorts of gaming goes on at the University Health Care Center when I show up.

Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back Into the Water

2009-12-17T17:54:00.000-08:00

It is wonderful to have people interested in your welfare. My immediate family has been quite supportive of my occasional tirades against the genes that force my duodenum to inhale vast amounts of iron. When I have hinted that my physician, “Doc Holliday”, has seemed somewhat cavalier about my progress or lack thereof, the whole outfit wants to break out the pitchforks and torches, and storm the castle where he regular hooks me up to the diodes running from the lightning rods on the roof. “Doctor Holinstein! Ve har komink fur SIE! Let ur liddle bunny go!” Well, it just warms the heart.

Once in a while I get a remark from some of my readers throughout the world. Most of the time they are supportive; others have desired to advertize their own products of whimsy; others, from time to time, actually make suggestions that have significance. Hence, the “Flying Finn” has often suggested that I need to eat European chocolate rather than the wax-overloaded American kind. For this suggestion I have been grateful, inasmuch as it has justified my penchant for buying 20-pound sacks of Riesens, a delightful product that only has 7% of my daily requirement for iron, and that is only an estimate because they are not quite certain how many animal parts actually got caught in the machinery. Remember, if it is tangy, it can’t be bad for you.

In response to my previous blog, “Rusted Nut” (not his real name….. I hope) made mention of something I had not thought of before. He suggested that maybe my ferritin spike might have come from an inflammation or an infection, if I had been under the weather at the time my ferritin was drawn. He spoke of ferritin being an “acute phase reactant”. BINGO! I have had some sort of sino-bronco-throato gunk weighing me down for the past month. I have been miserable, loading up on Clariton D-12, Robitussin DM, Halls cough drops, and Riesens on a daily basis as part of my treatment. I was feeling so bad the day that I went into have my ferritin sample drawn, that I laid my head down on one of the arms of the extraction chair and the Lab Tick filled her jar by tapping into a vein in my ear. “This is it! My ferritin went up, not because I am some sort of tooth and claw carnivore, but because I am a beef-eating mensch with a cold".

I, therefore, have thrust myself into the deep waters of cyber-space again to see what I could find out about “acute phase reactants”. The water is black, ice cold, and speaks German. As part of my research I came across the finest explanation yet as to how ferritin and transferrin work in the body and how they relate to hemochromatosis. The article is called “Ferritin and Transferrin In Iron Deficiency and Overload” by Rolf D. Hinzmann, M.D., Ph.D., European Scientific and Technical Support, Beckman Coulter, Germany. It originally appeared in “Immunodiagnostics Today” 12:1 Spring Fall 1999. I came away from the read as well informed as any other incident in my personal studies. I commend it to you

With regard to elevated ferritin counts produced by infections, even the CDC was helpful in their article on ferritin.

“Ferritin is present in the blood in very low concentrations. Plasma ferritin is in equilibrium with body stores, and its concentration declines early in the development of iron deficiency. Low serum ferritin concentrations thus are sensitive indicators of iron deficiency. Ferritin is also an acute-phase protein; acute and chronic diseases can result in increased ferritin concentration, potentially masking an iron-deficiency diagnosis. The generally accepted cut-off level for serum ferritin below which iron stores are considered to be depleted is 15 ng/mL"

Answers.com did not disappoint either.

“If ferritin is high there is iron in excess, which would be excreted in the stool.” Well, well, well; another mystery solved.

“Ferritin is also used as a marker for iron overload disorders, such as hemochromatosis and porphyria in which the ferritin level may be abnormally raised.” Let’s hear it for Abby Normal and Igor quivering in the dungeon of the castle. "Help us, Doctor Holinstein! Oh, the torches! Oh, the pitchforks! Oh, the humanity!"

“As ferritin is also an acute-phase reactant, it is often elevated in the course of disease. A normal C-reactive protein can be used to exclude elevated ferritin caused by acute phase reactions.” Well, the Lab Tick certainly didn’t think of that as she was massaging my left earlobe, did she?

“Ferritin can be elevated during periods of acute malnourishment.” So, in an attempt to improve my ferritin count, we all went out to eat at Carrabas last night where I stuffed myself with Lentil and Italian Sausage soup, Pollo Rosa Maria, Broccoli Ambrosia, and loads of hot bread dipped in olive oil and special seasonings. I have felt absolutely transcendent ever since.

Finally, as a ray of hope, I discovered that aspirin might help reduce my ferritin by reducing the inflammation before trundling off to the Little Shop of Horrors in January. So, if I am still hacking up lung parts after New Years, I will add a little Bayer (more German) to my regimen and watch my ferritin tally plummet to new lows. Thanks RN (not his real name…. I hope), you have made the holidays far more enjoyable.

“The Name is Bond, Zaphod Bond”

2009-12-09T08:40:00.000-08:00

Since receiving the results of my ferritin check last Saturday, I have had three movie scenes stuck in my head, all of which have serious implications in my battle against iron-overloading.

The first was actually from a television series called “Hunter” that ran from 1984 to 1991. It was television’s answer to Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry”. I do not think that I ever watched a complete episode. Given the ratings, I am doubtful that anyone watched a complete episode. However, one evening as I was channel-surfing, I happened upon the final scene of a “Hunter” episode that completely bowled me over. Hunter (played by Fred Dryer) and his partner McCall (played by Stefanie Kramer) had chased a villain to the top of a high-rise in Los Angeles. The culprit was standing on the ledge of the building, being defiant and sassy, and before Hunter could shoot him in the head (which was Hunter’s style), the guy slipped and fell twenty stories to the sidewalk below. Hunter walked over to the edge of the building, peered over, raised his eyebrows, and uttered his favorite catch-phrase, “Works for me!” Accompanying the lab report from the University of Utah, “Doc Holliday” sent a note that read, in part, “Excellent ferritin levels, Zaphod. Keep up your current treatment of phlebotomies. Works for me!”

The second scene is from a movie that I have never watched from beginning to end. Like the Hunter episode, I have only seen the end. In 1963, Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, and Gene Hackman starred in a movie called “The Gypsy Moths”, a film developed from the novel of the same name by James Drought. The story involves three sky-divers and their thrill show during a 4th of July celebration in a small mid-western town. The catch-phrase in this movie is one that Lancaster says regarding the spirit of sky-diving: “When you turn on by falling free… when jumping is not only a way to live, but a way to die too… then you’re a Gypsy Moth.” In the final scene, Lancaster makes his final jump of the show, free-falling a mile or so, drawing closer and closer to the ground. All of the crowd is horrified; his partners watch calmly, knowing that there is plenty of time for Burt to pull his rip-cord. Burt gets closer and closer to the ground, people are screaming hysterically, the partners are beginning to get nervous. Then Burt hits the ground doing about 500 miles an hour. He bounces some, but not a lot. I have wondered about that bounce for a long time, how it would feel. When I opened my letter from the University Health Center last Saturday, I had my answer. I think that Trillium, my sister Judie, and the rest of my concerned family, once they finish reading this posting are going to wonder about the bounce, too.

The third scene is, for my money, the greatest scene in all of the James Bond movies. Pierce Brosnan is at the top of the highest dam I have ever seen in my life (the Verzasca Dam in Switzerland), dressed in ninja black, and after the camera pulls back a little, he jumps off in a lovely swan dive. I am not certain how long the scene takes, but at 32 feet per second per second, James Bond must have been about to break the sound-barrier near the end of the dive. Just at the last second, the enormous bungee cord comes into play, 007 is able to shoot his little dart gun, and reel himself to the top of the building at the bottom of the dam. There were two things about that scene that have troubled me. First, what happened to the cord when James cut himself loose? The whiplash from the tension should have taken out half of the Soviet army. Second, how much taller was our hero after that jump? I estimate about a foot and a half. Needless to say, I favor this last picture over the previous two for a couple of reasons. First, I am the hero who overcomes all eventualities and second, I don’t die a miserable death by actually hitting the ground. That is how I feel about the lab report on my ferritin levels.

Four months ago, my ferritin level was at 136, after a year-long, continuous free-fall from the astonishing heights of 827. Two months ago, probably due to the rather cavalier attitude that I had developed about my prospects, my ferritin went up one point to 137. I had been expecting another 50 point drop, but it was not forthcoming. So for the last two months, I have tried to be good. Other than an occasional Swedish meatball, and an infrequent wheat-dog, I have really been circumspect about what I have been eating. Saturday’s report snatched me by my bootstraps: my ferritin had gone up to 160. “Doc Holliday” was happy, my family was momentarily horrified, and I started looking for my little dart gun.

I am not certain what has happened, but I am being proactive and during the next few weeks I will be posting my findings. I have also conjured up some rather radical treatment plans which should prove amusing, if not effective. Fear not! I am not splattered around the countryside; I am just having to duck beneath every door jam in the house.

Blood is Thicker Than Water

2009-11-13T10:13:00.000-08:00

The saga continues. I went to the Infusion Center yesterday to have my vein tapped again. I have been behaving myself, so I have been hoping for a significant drop in my ferritin. In two weeks I will have my answer. If it turns out that all of my skimping and starving has been to no avail, that my ferritin count has basically remained the same as two months ago, I will jump from the Vegan life raft and rejoin the passengers and crew of the S.S. Omnivore. Chester, my specialist for the day, was not optimistic. She checked my hemoglobin: “Hmmm! This isn’t good! Your hemoglobin is at 17 (times three is 41) and you are not anemic at all. The doctor wants you to be anemic.” What! I did not know that! “Doc Holliday” never said anything about my becoming anemic! He just didn’t want me to ironic!

How does a fellow like me ever become anemic? Is it even possible for someone with hemochromatosis to become anemic? My body sucks up every third nano-gram of iron that I stuff into my pie-hole. I suppose that if I went on a starvation diet (much like the one I am on now), I might deplete my iron supply, but with a 136 ferritin count, I cannot even dream of becoming anemic. Now if my ferritin count were below 50, I might consider Chester’s observation about my hemoglobin as having some merit. For the time being, however, I am just going to assume that she has suffered a brain aneurism.

I was my usual bon vivant self, ebullient and radiating whining confidence as I walked into the parlor. “Ooooo! Zaphod! You’re back! How nice for us! Why don’t you settle down in Booth 1?”

“Because there is someone else already there?”

“Hmmmm. So there is. How about Booth 4? Is there anyone in there?”

There wasn’t, so I sat down, wondering who was going to end up in my lap. I was directly across from a lady who was receiving some sort of infusion. It did not look like blood. After sitting quietly for a minute or two, one of the other nurses flitted by and commented on the fact that the lady in Booth 1 had not been attended to for some time. She wondered out loud where “Gory” and his playmates were. I am not certain that that question was ever answered, even though I saw him an hour later as I was leaving. I wondered if I was going to be left unattended while they took my pint, allowing the bag to blow up like some sort of post-apocalyptic tick. Hmmmm! Anemia was possible under certain circumstances!

After about ten minutes, Chester showed up with her little bag of tricks and began working me over. “You know,” I said, “when I was in here 6 months ago, the nurse that administered the phlebotomy said that the needle wasn’t supposed to hurt, and that the only sting that I should experience was the Lytacane. Yet the last two times that I have had blood drawn, the whole process was painful. I felt the needles in spite of the Lytacane.”

“Well,” she replied, “it is nice that you are so susceptible to suggestion. These things always hurt; there is no escaping the pain; the holes in your arm are real. Look at the size of this needle! Does that look painless to you?” Chester has a wonderful chair-side manner. “Of course, it is possible to increase the amount of Lytacane a little so that it actually has some anesthetic effect. Would you like that? How about if I take your blood from the same arm where I put the Lytacane? Would that be an improvement, in your double-doctorate opinion?” I said that I thought that both options might be worth a try.

Chester always compliments me on my veins. Everyone compliments me on my veins. I have lovely veins. When my children were very young, they would entertain themselves by playing with the veins in the back of my hand. I found that somehow soothing; I generally fell asleep about half way through Church. My children found that amusing, particularly when I began to snore. Today, Chester had a bit of a conundrum to deal with. “Which of all these lovely veins to you want me to tap? They are all so lovely!” I suggested that my contemplating the matter did not tend to sooth me. “Well, then, I will just poke you HERE!” When I came to a few minutes later, Chester was fussing with the needle and the tubing. “Your blood seems a little thick today, Dr. Beeblebrox. Have you been overdosing on corn starch?” I had not. In fact, I had not partaken of breakfast or lunch that day. “Well,” she said, “Perhaps it would be better in the future to drink a lot of fluids before you come to give blood. This is like trying to siphon a quart of molasses from a fifty-gallon drum in the dead of winter.”

She horsed around with the needle for a while. “OH! That’s got it! No! Yes! No! No! No! Yes! Yes! WOW!” By the end of the hour, she had managed to coax out 480 milliliters, a pint, or some other indefinable amount of blood. She stopped at that point because, said she, I had “clotted out”, whatever that meant. I wondered if I was going to have an aneurism too.

I left the building and drove up to Shy’s house where Trillium was watching Lily’s siblings. I ate peanut butter cookies with my grandson, wondering if the cookies were going to thicken my blood any more than it already was. As we waited for Lily’s daddy to show up after his visit with the Mamma Dandelion, I drifted off, perhaps in anticipation that Lily would one day find the veins in my hand fascinating and amusing.

HU NU?

2009-10-16T11:20:00.000-07:00

Well, my faithful readers are stuck with another “nothing” posting about hemochromatosis because I have a compulsion to write and nothing to write about. My next phlebotomy will not take place until the middle of November and the ferritin check will not be made until about the first of December.

I do, however, take the opportunity to report some necessary corrections to my previous posting. My ferritin count did not go down a point; it went UP a point from 135 to 136. Bad math skills on my part. The fact that no one picked up on the gaff is a telling one. HU NU? Apparently no one.

I have to say as well that I have cut back on my red meat. For the past week or so I have had not even one wheat dog. We went to Sizzler on Tuesday and I did not have a steak! What’s down with that! I had the senior Malibu chicken, which was made of an extremely old sand dollar, a piece of ham and a tasteless mass of cheese. I was assured that there was very little iron in the meal and so when the waitress said “Enjoy!” I tried to respond in a positive way. It was about as positive as my last change in ferritin. All I have to say is that if I want chicken any time soon, I think I will drive down to Spanish Fork and kill my own, run over it with the car, carve the individual servings out with a snickerdoodle cutter, and cook the whole mess on my radiator on the way home. I think that is the Sizzler recipe.

Now that I can do nothing about my blood count, other than abstinence, I have begun to focus on my supplements. I have wondered for the last year or so why they have not been working as well as they should have, if I am to believe the propaganda the holistic medicine people. In the midst of all this consternation, I forgot to take my pills in the morning a couple of weeks ago, not getting to them until after lunch. A wonderful thing happened. I slept six straight hours and didn’t wet the bed. For the record, I have not wet the bed for more than sixty-three years, but I was stunned that I did not have to get up every two hours to maintain my record. I thought that maybe the reason why I was able to go so long without going, was that I had taken the saw palmetto later in the day. I began to wonder about my other pills. When is it better to take them all, in the morning or in the evening? What follows are the results of my investigation.

Lisinopril: I couldn’t even remember how to spell “lisinopril” and was somewhat shocked when I googled “liprinasil” this morning and obtained no hits whatsoever. “Oh, no!” I said to myself, “I am taking a medication that is not made on this planet, completely unknown in cyberspace!” By now, you have figured out that I googled the wrong word, but Google wasn’t even smart enough to figure out what I really wanted. HU NU? Not them!

Well, I finally got the right name and found out an interesting thing. "Wikianswers" suggests that “usually, lisinopril is taken in the morning if your blood pressure is highest in the afternoon or in the evening if your blood pressure is highest in the morning". I frankly did not want to take my blood pressure twice a day to find out what I needed to do, so I completely ignored that piece of information. Eventually I found a posting by “SueAnn56” who confided to her readers, “My cardio explained that he wanted my blood pressure to be low at night and upon awakening so that my body could rest.” Hence, she takes her blood pressure medicine at night. I figured if “SueAnn56” could have that clear of a convenient reason for an afternoon tipple, “Zaphod67” could as well. I suspect that some of my good night’s rest for the past two weeks has been directly related to the fact that I have been taking my lisinapril near dinner time.

Saw palmetto: My research on saw palmetto was perfunctory because I was certain that the benefits of taking the supplement in the evening had already been proven somewhat. But I did come up with some interesting facts about saw palmetto and Flomax. The two work completely different from one another, the former apparently being far more effective in helping with some of the conditions that tend toward prostate cancer. “Spreademocracy” had this little tidbit.

Regarding Saw Palmetto, as a precaution, it might be wise to know what your DHT blood count is. Then, based on that knowledge, to discuss taking this herbal with your GP or Uro. What works for others may not work for you in the long run. For example, if you have high DHT, you may not be able to impact it sufficiently with Saw Palmetto and will lose valuable time that could have been spent containing the problem and keeping your prostate from growing. Or, you may need to swallow so many Saw Palmetto pills that you may want to jump right to PROSCAR or AVODART. (P.S., if taking large quantities of Saw Palmetto, you may want to do so with meals since it may be a tad easier on the stomach. If you have liver, kidney problems, or are going for any surgical procedures, seek medical advice before self dosing.) Best wishes to you!

Thanks, SD, I only take one pill, at night, and I seemed to be doing okay. Best wishes to you, too, but you could have been a little more specific about what you really wished for me.

Chondroitin and Glucosamine: Trillium has been telling me for some time that these two “doodahs” probably aren’t doing a whole lot for me. I had just bought a fifty-pound sack of the pills at the time she clarified her views and I thought that maybe I ought to use them up before I abandoned all hope for a completely regenerated knee joint. By the way, I have no trouble at all with my joints which is probably due to one of two things: one, I take a daily dose of chondroiton and glucosamine; or two, I have no problems at all with my joints. I did discover, however, that there is nothing in this world better than chondroiton and glucosamine if you are a dog with arthritis. I am not holding my breath, dog or otherwise, to find out the truth of this matter.

Vitamin D3: Apparently, taking this wunder-vit is good any time of the day. If you are, however, suffering from chronic renal failure, the medicos suggest that taking Vitamin D in the evening is better than in the morning. I neither desire nor need renal failure added to my list of maladies to justify my evening dose. It simply goes down with the rest of what I am taking because all of the pills are already separated into the daily slots of my weekly meds tube.

Fish Oil: My last oral bombshell is my Omega 3 Fish Oil gelcap. I found a lot of chatter on the internet about options, but here is my favorite.

With the recent addition of evening primrose oil, my morning pills now include:

1 prenatal vitamin
1 fish oil capsule (for Omega 3)
2 red raspberry leaf capsules (I also take 2 with lunch and 2 with dinner)
2 evening primrose oil capsules

Holy wow. And then my burps taste nasty for hours. Anyone else in the same boat? Anyone just decide it's not worth it? I admit I'm a bit of a vitamin freak... Leoba

HOLY WOW, LEOBA! TAKE IT AT NIGHT! Of course, my informant is eight months pregnant and may not respond well to masculine reasoning. I think that I might try the evening primrose oil and the raspberry leaf capsules just to see if I can produce sympathetic labor pains in the middle of the night.

There you have it. The latest from an old man who is frittering away his Friday morning hours blathering about stuff that will help no one feel at ease with iron-overloading, except for those of us who have suddenly realized that Leoba is about to give birth to a nine-pound salmon. With a smile on my face, I am about to head up to the kitchen to find prenatal vitamins; we’re getting close to the Christmas holidays and I want to be ready.

What's Down With That?

2009-10-04T18:14:00.000-07:00

I am here to report that I have managed to live my life such that during the past two months, notwithstanding the phlebotomy two weeks ago, my ferritin count only dropped 1 point, to 136. What's up with that?

I thought at first that perhaps the problem was that I had both the phlebotomy and the ferritin sample taken from the same arm. Think about it. If my body senses a steep decline in iron at my left elbow, what do you think it is going to do? Is it not going to send a big batch of ferritin to that side of my body? I should have had "She Who Shall Remain Nameless" take the ferritin sample from my right elbow where there would have been considerably less iron.

Once the lunacy of that conclusion revealed itself, I thought about other possibilities. I have concluded that I have gotten just a little too laid back, putting all of my iron eggs into one basket, as it were. I apparently decided that I really didn't need to watch what I ate during the past two months, inasmuch as as the blood-letting has been doing the trick during the past year. Let me give you a few examples.

About a month ago, Trillium brought home a 2 and one-half pound bag of Hershey's Treasures. Except for an occasional Grinchy doling out of a few pieces to one of my grand-daughters and two of my chocoholic daughters, I hammered down the whole bag by myself. Did you know that Hershey's chocolate is 247% pure iron? Well, not that much but it does contain 2% of one's daily requirement of iron, the sugar facilitating the complete absorption of every molecule, not just the 30% we hemochromatosis types allow into the sluice. My guess is that the sugar goes straight to the duodenum and opens up the floodgate for every atom that has an "Fe" engraved on it, no matter what its source.

Since we have been enjoying great grilling weather here in Utah, Trillium thought that it would be nice if we had some dinners a-la-Zaphod. We could have had halibut, or mahi-mahi. We might have gone for tofu burgers. Even baked Alaska is possible on my new grill. Did I go for any of these sensible alternatives to semi-liquid iron sources at Costco? No! I bought rib-eye steaks; two-inch thick rib-eye steaks. I also mixed in at least two or three meals of tri-tip steak. On top of that there were the frequent hamburger barbecues. I was managing to drive iron spikes into every organ of my body and thoroughly enjoying myself in the process.

At some point, in the middle of all of this indulgence, Trillium and I went out to eat at Outback. I ordered a Victoria steak, medium, and received a juicy 8-ounce piece of beef just this side of "Moo!" The boys and girls there were sorry that I had dined on living flesh, so they brought us dessert for free, which again guaranteed that every bite of that steak was destined to reach my pancreas. What's a poor boy to do?

The drop of one point of ferritin disappointed me. I am certain that my sister is going to respond to this latest development with sternness, the kind of sternness that only a linebacker for the Green Bay Packers can deliver properly. Going out with Trillium has been limited to french fries at Carl's Jr., soup and salad at the Olive Garden, and in the back yard at the apple tree. Hopefully the first of December will bring a more satisfactory result. Tonight we had a dinner that revolved around an iron-depleting plate of chicken enchiladas. I have to be better by Christmas or I will be eating coal.

The Iron Cross

2009-09-23T17:17:00.000-07:00

I am not much for awards for personal heroics, but I had an experience last night that demands, in my mind at least, that there should be something done of an outward nature to reward the people in question.

A few months ago, I was ironically asked by the leaders of our Church to be in charge of the semi-annual blood drive wherein our 3500 members are given an opportunity to donate to the American Red Cross. There was a great deal of humor generated when the officers of the Church discovered the nature of my genetic condition. A few wanted to know if it was contagious and, if so, would I infect them. They apparently have some sort of fear of needles as well.

In any event, I have spent the last couple of months coordinating the arrangements between the ARC and the Church so that the building would be ready for them to set up their equipment and to have sufficient donors there to make their visit worthwhile. In times past during the last five years, about 25 to 30 units of blood have been donated at each session. Anita, my contact, was certain that we could do better, but nothing up to this point had proven effective. I said that I would do what I could. She, by the way, also found it outrageously humorous that I was to be the person in charge.

Without going into all of the particulars, I will simply say that by the time the drive started at 3:00 yesterday afternoon, we had 118 people pre-registered to donate blood. By the time of the end of the drive, at 8:00 PM, the Red Cross had been able to collect 78 units of blood. They had skeptically only brought 80 pieces of equipment to the affair, thinking that our estimates were just a little high. They were surprised and pleased. I hope that they don’t expect greater things in the spring. I did, however, learn some things from the experience.

First, it is not a good thing to have a cold, the flu, typhoid fever, mad cow disease, or malaria just prior to coming to give blood. The ARC considers that state of affairs a sanguinary sarcasm of the first order and treats the afflicted one with a certain degree of contempt. Of course, each individual had been given a 20-page booklet to read when they first registered, in which the mad cow disease was specifically mentioned. Some of the workers were certain that not everyone was taking the required time with the booklet. I frankly thought that they were just extremely fast readers like Evelyn Wood. I wonder if she gave blood fast.

Additionally it is important to know that if you have spent any length of time in a foreign country like Zimbabwe, Cambodia, Outer Mongolia, or New Mexico, you won’t be allowed to give blood. New Mexico is included on the list because most people working for the American Red Cross do not realize that the place is really a State in the United States. This fact is complicated by the fact that President Ulysses S. Grant said, while travelling through New Mexico, “I understand that we fought a war with Mexico for this desolate piece of property. I think that we ought to fight another war to force them to take it back!” One fellow served as a missionary in England several years ago during the mad cow scare and he has never been allow to donate blood since. He came last night to see if the prohibition was still in effect. It was and the ARC ushered him out of the building by enticing him with a bale of hay.

Some of the potential donors had blood vessels that were too small. When I go to the Infusion Center, the ghouls there use a 14-gauge needle on me. There is a virtual torrent of blood that pours though that stainless steel needle. I asked one of the nurses last night what size they were using. She said that they regularly employ a 16-gauge needle. Any larger than that and the blood vessels don’t cooperate, she said. I began to wonder why the Infusion Center chose to deal with me as they have. Maybe at 6’4 and 230 pounds I can be drained with less finesse.

I was startled at some of the developments during the night, events which were treated with such a baize attitude that I concluded that these were regular happenings at these organized blood-lettings. I was sitting at the registration table, minding my own business, when I heard a “thump”. I turned to see what was going on and there was a young mother who had just given blood, on her hands and knees. She had blacked out on her way to the refreshment area. She was propped up on the floor, with a little pillow and a bottle of water until she could recover sufficiently. Not five feet away was an empty gurney on to which I thought she should have been placed, but the attendants simply made her comfortable where she was. Her baby boy and her friend that she had come with sat on the floor next to her. They were there about 25 minutes. I propose that this girl be given the “Iron Cross” for her pains. This award for valor was first given by the Prussians in 1813 in conjunction with the Napoleonic Wars. I think that since she had to suffer there on the floor rather than on the gurney that her medal be upgraded to the “Grand Cross of the Iron Cross” for her troubles. A lovely and appropriate tribute.

As I was wandering about during the drive, I met another donor who, for some unexplained reason was splattered all over his right side with what I am certain was his own blood. When I asked about it, someone said, “Oh, that happens all the time!”

I thought to myself, “You know, I have been giving blood for over a year, both by the pint and by the ounce, and I have yet to be drenched in my own blood, even though I have joked about the possibility.” The fellow was cheerful about the resultant spray, almost as if he had been shot down over Belgium somewhere. Well, I think that someone ought to strap the “Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross With Blood Squirts” around that fellow’s neck. He deserves the recognition.

The last episode concerns a rather large man, young and full of life, who came into the building about 6:30. He was almost the last person to leave the place. He sat strapped to a table for over an hour and a half while the technicians tried to find a vein that would work. They never did. When he got up from the place where he had been tied down, he staggered a bit. I asked him if he was okay. He said, “Yeah, it’s just that my leg fell asleep.” He had track marks up and down the inside of both arms where they had attempted to put in the needles. I had the willies for an hour after that. I decided that the American Red Cross needed to come up with a special award for his valor under fire, as it were. I recommend the “Knight’s Cross with Gold Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds”. Erwin Rommel got that in 1943 and he didn’t have nearly as many holes in him as my friend did.

I arrived home shortly before ten after having put everything away with a few of the brethren. The techs were gracious enough to swab up the blood and iodine, but we still had to put way the tables and chairs.

I think that the next time I go down to the Infusion Center that I am going to ask for the “Star of the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross with Sarsaparilla Sprigs and Lorna Doone Clusters”. It’s about time!

“Holy Chelating Thistle Milk, Batman!”

2009-09-10T09:04:00.000-07:00

I have been suffering a general malaise for the last couple of days and I haven’t been able to figure out what was causing it. I thought maybe it was empathetic sympathy, or something psychosomatic, or a dietary variation of some kind, or maybe just a lightness of blood. I thought, “Well, maybe I should let my readers decide what my ailment is by relating the events of the past few days.” I realize that this invitation may be more than what the Comcast server can handle, but I will blaze ahead untrammeled. The service cannot be much slower than it already is.

A day or so ago, my youngest daughter posted a blog in which she related, with rather vivid detail, her adventures of the day. This included a description of a grievous laceration while washing a fragile piece of glassware and the subsequent medical attention that she received. I was not a little disturbed by this, inasmuch as I get just a little queasy when I nick myself with my razor. The poking, prodding and sewing lesson made me just a little faint. Had this not been followed by a realistic depiction of her own daughter’s projectile hurling episode, I might have survived the reading. I was completely worn out by the time I got to the end. Someone suggested that maybe I picked up what Eva had. I thought not, because I had managed to put myself into the Lotus position in my den when the clan arrived at the house for the wash-down of the car, the car seat, and little Eva. I find that when one of my grandchildren is in mortal agony, Buddhism is the only remedy.

About that same time (that is, a day or so ago and not during the Eva-agony) I decided to watch another episode of Star Trek TOS. I am near the end of the third season and am probably now looking at a shot at the final episodes of Battlestar Galactica once I am done. So I have been diligently watching Kirk and the boys do their thing. There is in the third season an episode called “The Way to Eden”. The plot involves a group of 23rd century hippies trying to find a lost planet where everything is beautiful, where the deer and the antelope are playing all day. As it turns out, the hippies anticipated the deer and the antelope by filling every scene with some sort of musical interlude. In the middle of all of this, Trillium walked through the room and said, “This is awful!”

I replied, “Of all of the episodes this is by far and away the worst. When the guitar player dies in the end, having eaten of the poisonous fruit of the planet Eden, there is a noticeable cheer from the production company.”

“Why are you watching it then?”

“I am a Trekkie. Trekkies take the good with the bad. But I would like a piece of that Eden-fruit right now.” I may have cursed myself in jest. I have not been well since.

I considered that perhaps other aspects of my diet may have had something to do with my lack of well-being. My breakfast that day had been composed of two pieces of rye bread toast and two glasses of 1% milk. I discounted that as the source of my problems inasmuch as I have that just about every morning. For lunch I had an entire head of lettuce, cut into four pieces, and slathered in blue cheese dressing. I decided that it was not the lettuce because I have that item frequently at mid-day. The dressing? What could possibly be wrong with a condiment laced with a boat load of mold? In the evening I had a 14 ounce rib-eye steak, perfectly grilled on our brand-new four burner barbeque, followed by freshly sliced peaches on angel-food cake covered in Cool Whip. Nothing evil there!

That leaves us with lightness of blood. Is it possible that my body is reacting to the fact that I now have less than 20% of the original amount of iron that filled my organ tissues a year ago? Could it be that I am going through withdrawal? Am I experiencing iron deficiency anemia? In the midst of my own personal agony last night, however, I discovered that “Doc Holliday” and I have been going at this hemochromatosis thing all wrong.

Last night I wended my way over to the church for a series of Boy Scout Boards of Review. The Krrrrakin was there and after I mentioned that I was feeling poorly, he said, “Oh! I have something for you from Calypso. I should have given this to you months ago, but it got lost among my tentacles.” He then handed me a rather moist piece of paper. It was an article from the Wright Newsletter, entitled “How you can benefit from the 3 things I never knew about milk thistle”. Wow! Am I in the mood to learn!

The third revelation in this little essay by Kerry Bone states that a group of Italian scientists (not to be confused with the German ones who determined how many skin cells are sloughed off by the human population of the earth every day) had discovered that “silybin”, a plant chemical found in milk thistle, could be used as a holistic method of removing iron from hemochromatosis patients. Dr. Bone reports that by ingesting 600 mg of silymarin every day (200 mg three times a day) a patient with hepatitis C can reduce his or her serum ferritin by 15%. Now, there are several things that troubled me about this procedure even before I went online to do a little research of my own.

First, how do you think the Italians would pronounce “silybin”? That’s right! “Sillybean”! Boy, that fact really breaths a lot of confidence into the theory! Second, how does one go about milking a thistle? The plants here in Utah are huge and they are physiologically opposed to anyone dinking around with them. Even with heavy leather gloves on I have found myself filled with spines as I have tried to pull the little hummers out of the ground. Thirdly, I don’t think I am really prepared to contract a bad case of hepatitis C just to download a little iron.

As it turns out, however, the seeds of the milk thistle (I think that I shall forevermore call these “sillybeans”) have long-established medicinal value, particularly in cases of liver damage. It has also been useful in treating those people whose eyesight is so poor that they cannot distinguish edible mushrooms from the Amanita or Death Cap mushrooms. “Sillybeans” can help with lowering cholesterol, with checking effects of type II diabetes, with reducing growth in prostate cancers, with reducing the deleterious effects of a hangover, and with ameliorating withdrawal symptoms of those addicted to opiates, particularly during the Acute Withdrawal Stage. Since the Miracle Whip Institute suggests that these are all viable applications for the “Sillybean”, it must be true.

With regard to the value of milk thistle in treating iron-overloading there is a virtual war raging in cyberspace. My buddy “wpat007” shovels down milk thistle every day. Some doctors support him, others think of him as dancing on the edge of eternity. Frankly, being somewhat familiar with the practices of Buddhism, I think that we should all take the “middle road”. Along with everything else that I have discovered about the plant, I have learned that many parts of the milk thistle are edible. Here are a couple of ancient recipes which I will probably try the next time a milk thistle pops its ugly head up in one of my planters:

“Around the 16th Century this plant became quite popular and almost all parts of it were eaten. The roots can be eaten raw or boiled and buttered or par-boiled and roasted. The young shoots in spring can be cut down to the root and boiled and buttered. The spiny bracts on the flower head were eaten in the past like globe artichoke, and the stems (after peeling of course) can be soaked overnight to remove bitterness and then stewed. The leaves can be trimmed of prickles and boiled and make a good spinach substitute, they can also be added raw to salads.”

Yummy! So like Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus, you too can have the best of both worlds.

The Very Large 9

2009-08-18T19:36:00.000-07:00

It is nice to have people watching out for me. For some, it is out of love, for others it is a matter of professional duty and pride, and there are those who do so because I am their cash cow. My sister Judie and Trillium are fervent in their labors to see to my iron disorder, that I make progress quickly toward “wunder-gesund” because they have invested so much time and effort in seeing to it that I am actually loveable. “Doc Holliday” has pinned his entire career on his treatment of my potentially fatal disease, bucking the winds of international cyperspace with his pedestrian approach to therapeutic phlebotomies. His has been the voice of reason in a hurricane of hysteria. The Infusion Center and the lab techs just smile broadly when I cross the threshold; I can hear the “ka-ching” as it reverberates throughout the building.

I also have others who have offered recommendations to improve my health. Some have been interesting, though impractical: “Eat Magnets – The 12,000 Gaussodyne Diet”. Others have peaked my curiosity: “The Star Trek Phlebotomy – Beam It Out of Me, Scotty!” And, my personal favorite: “If You Drink Enough of This Stuff, Your Iron Will Float Away Like the Axe Head of Elisha”. It is of this third sort of proposal that I would like to contribute a few words of experience and learning.

A couple of weeks ago, Trillium and I went a-visiting to Wendel and Lee’s house. The latter was all a-flutter about a new supplement that she and her husband had been taking. Lee was all aglow about this drink, 10 ounces a day of which would turn me into a new man. Being kind of an “old man”, I am certainly willing to try anything that would turn me into a “new man”. “Yes siree,” she effused. “Drink this stuff everyday it will take 50 years off of you”. That had some appeal, inasmuch as I assumed that I would also lose the 70 pounds that I have acquired since I was seventeen. “You, too, Trillium. This drink will cure any disease in the world.” I wasn’t sure what Lee was trying to say about my wife, but if the supplement were to take 50 years off her life, I would be sharing a cell with Warren Jeffs. Trillium and I bought two canisters of the product and began swilling it down. I was faithful about it. Some of the promised effects transpired…. Once.

The taste was ghastly. I was assured by Lee that it would have tasted a whole lot worse had it not been for the distilled cranberry juice. It was the second worst drink I have ever had. The first worst tasting drink I have ever had was Noni Juice. I think that it was designed to scare your body into good health. I know that my body always went into a panic attack just before I tried to horse some of it down. One of the bottles stayed in the refrigerator for almost two years before it finally walked off into the sunset. Anyway, back to the 2nd worst. The nastiness of the drink had to do with its main ingredient, L-arginine. In my own inimitable fashion, I have ferreted out a few things about it. The Miracle Whip Institute, located in St. Paul, Minnesota, gives some of the more salient points.

“L-arginine was first isolated in 1886. In 1932, scientists learned that L-arginine is needed to create urea, a waste product that is necessary for toxic ammonia to be removed from the body. In 1939, researchers discovered that L-arginine is also needed to make creatine. Creatine breaks down into creatinine at a constant rate, and it is cleared from the body by the kidneys.”

I really didn’t want to know about toxic ammonia in whatever year it was discovered. I have enough trouble just trying to get rid of the excess iron. I did discover, however, that ammonia is helpful in cleaning up old cast-iron pots and pans. So, my cast-iron stomach? Clean as a whistle! All of the overloaded iron in my pancreas, liver, heart, and brain? All bright and shiny! Wow! All that in just a week of sado-masochistic cranberry juice slurping.

“Arginine changes into nitric oxide, which causes blood vessel relaxation (vasodilation). Early evidence suggests that arginine may help treat medical conditions that improve with vasodilation, such as chest pain, clogged arteries (called atherosclerosis), coronary artery disease, erectile dysfunction, heart failure, intermittent claudication/peripheral vascular disease, and blood vessel swelling that causes headaches (vascular headaches).”

The first time I took a snort of L-aginine, my blood pressure dropped to 114 over 68. I was just a little light-headed. I got just a little giddy. I began to giggle and then to laugh outrageously. All was happiness until my body figured out that the L-arginine was releasing “nitric oxide” instead of “nitrous oxide”. Then I went into a kind of blue funk that lasted for a week. It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.

“In general, most people do not need to take arginine supplements because the body usually produces enough.”

Well, there was a news flash worth $138.98. At another website I found a series of questions and answers about L-arginine. I give two of them here

“How does L-arginine work?
“L-arginine is converted in the body into a chemical called nitric oxide. Nitric oxide causes blood vessels to open wider for improved blood flow. L-arginine also stimulates the release of growth hormone, insulin, and other substances in the body.”

Okay! Low blood pressure combined with a possibility of growing even bigger than I already am. During the three weeks that I took the stuff, I put on 13 pounds. Parts of me were beginning to poke out of my shirt. If I had not quit drinking the juice I would have had to have bought a whole new wardrobe

“Are there safety concerns?
“L-arginine is safe for most people when taken appropriately by mouth. It can cause some side effects such as abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea, gout, blood abnormalities, allergies, airway inflammation, worsening of asthma, and low blood pressure.”

Enough said! The cure is worse than the disease!

Now here is the news you have all been waiting for. I received the report on my last phlebotomy and ferritin check today. My ferritin count has dropped another 40 points to 135, just as I sort of predicted. The Alt/Med people are going to claim another victory I am certain. I can hear Lee shouting over the back fence, “It’s the L-arginine! It's floating that iron out of your body like Elisha’s axe head!”

So let it be written; so let it be done.

The Lyticane Placebo

2009-07-27T13:59:00.000-07:00

Well, the economic downturn has finally hit central Utah!

This morning Trillium and I went out to go shopping. As we began our prance through Costco, we noticed that the price of gas had dropped eleven cents since the last time we bought any. Trillium said, "Well, maybe we ought to go over and top off the tank." Then she looked at the gas gauge. It was almost full. "It hardly seems to be worth the trouble." The fact that we had filled the tank six weeks ago says something about the amount of time that we have devoted to stimulating the U.S. economy. We took T-ma out to eat last week and went to Village Inn instead of Carrabas, not because we couldn't afford the latter, but we thought that it was really important to support a place that otherwise would have no customers at all. For my money, I simply bought myself about six hours of bad indigestion. The upside was that my body completely rejected all of the available iron in the onion rings, the deep fried cod, and the jumbo scrimp slathered in cocktail sauce. As my duodenum said later, "I am not going to stand for this any more! From now on, I am only going to accept the Pollo Rosa Maria." Works for me.

As part of this morning's adventures we drove up to the DFCU to see about getting our annual box of free checks. Since we have been depositors and investors in the place for more than 30 years, the credit union has a special place in their hearts for us. We are "Loyal" customers and therefore, DFCU tries to benefit us in a variety of ways. We have been in Utah for nine years now and at some point early on the credit union sent us a notice saying that they were going to shower us with gifts as an act of appreciation. They would pay all of our bills for free. They would give us checks for free. They would do notary work for us for free. They would give us a considerably higher rate of interest on our CDs than the normal dweebs received. We could eat all of the lobby candy that we wanted, which usually consisted of rootbeer barrels. Just a whole bowl full of things for us if we simply dropped in. The bill pay went away after about six months. I asked what had happened. They said that the whole thing fouled up their computer system. A couple of other benefits have gone by the boards, including, as it turns out, the free box of checks every year. When I asked about it this morning, the teller said, "I'm new here. I don't think we do that." I said, "You have been doing it for at least five years. What's happened?" The teller contacted her supervisor.

"Oh, we don't do that any more. The downturn in the economy, you know."

"Hey! I didn't become involved in risky business dealings all over the country. I didn't invest in sub-prime mortgages. I didn't spend more than what I had coming in. I stuffed all of my disposable cash into this place, figuring that I would thereby have my free box of checks every year because I was LOYAL! Now I suppose I will have to leave a ten-dollar bill in the basket just to have one of these rootbeer barrels!"

"No, Dr. Beeblebrox, those are only two dollars. The economy isn't that bad."

This afternoon I went over to the Infusion Center to have my bi-monthly phlebotomy. The girls all ranted and raved at my appearance, commenting appreciatively about my blog, how wonderfully entertaining it was, in spite of the fact that I made them out to be a pack of ghouls from time to time. One of the nurses said to the other, "You know, Majel, Zaphod thinks you are his hero."

"Why does he think that!" I love being talked about in the third person when I am in the same room.

"Because you were the first nurse to take his blood and it didn't hurt as much as he thought it would." I wondered when that happened. I thought it was the Girl in Glacier Ice Blue that had managed to cure me of my phobia, or at least part of it, when she told me that the Lyticane was what really hurt and not the needle. I decided that it was not worth my life to tell "Chester" that she had confused my nurses.

In any event, "Nurse Chappell" arranged all of the gear around me in the cubicle. I said that I was grateful that I had learned that it was not the needle but the local anesthesia that hurt me at the first. It was then that the horror began.

"Oh, Zaphod, the needle always hurts, no matter how small. It just does... It just does..." Then she began to morph into Peter Lorrie, in texture and temperament.... "Yessss... I really don't want to hurt you, but....... I just,... I just,... I just can't heeelllppp myself."

And, lo and behold, that needle did hurt, it hurt a lot! I almost jumped up out of the chair. "Wasn't that nice?" the nurse said.

"No, no, it wasn't!"

"Good!" Then she pulled out a needle the size of a broomstick and tried to jam it into my elbow. "There," she said, "Does that hurt? Does that hurt? How about over here?"

When I came to, the nurses were pouring me a glass of Barq's rootbeer, while a third one of them was stepping on my package of Lorna Doones. "Sorry about the cookies," she said sheepishly as she poured the dust into my hand.

"What is going on here?" I said weakly.

"Oh this is just part of our inservice training for the new healthcare program that the Senate and the House are getting ready to vote on. We just wanted you to know what your service is going to be like if it goes through."

"Really? Even Medicare patients?"

"Especially Medicare patients. I hope that you didn't mind too much that we used rootbeer instead of Lyticane to deaden the place where we drew your blood. We literally wanted you to get the point."

I decided afterward that I would get my haircut, so I went up to the Dollar Cuts next to Macy's on State Street and had a lady work me over. She was an old time barber, one who had been doing hair for 35 years, one that put the little tissue around my neck first before cinching down the apron. After she did my hair, she worked my eyebrows over and the tuffs of fine white hairs that collect on my ears from time to time. I think she actually put Brylcream on my hair. I felt like a new man. It was an $11.00 haircut. She managed to get so much iron off my head that I gave her a three dollar tip. As I was paying my bill she said, "The girls from the Infusion Center called to say that they were sorry and that I was to give you a really good hair cut. They said that if you tipped really well that they would take it easy on you next time, even though it is their current policy to really stick it to everyone who comes in. Actually, they are really worried about what you are going to write about them in your blog."

As I thought about it, I laughed right out loud. I laughed all the way out to the Mustang, all the way down State Street, all the way to the house, and I am laughing as I am putting the final touches on this little entry.

The Ironic Superhero

2009-07-21T17:59:00.000-07:00

I have lately been cherishing my speed reading of the Deseret News here in Orem, inasmuch as our old paper carrier quit here last week and the new paper-person (man, woman, girl, boy?) has had some difficulty finding my front porch. On a couple of days, he, she, or it has had trouble finding the neighborhood. I will not go into the trouble that I had reporting this fact to Media One, the diabolical franchise commissioned to field questions from the public about newspaper delivery, because it would sound so familiar to my regular readers that they would think that there is an echo in this blog. The whole reporting process has been computerized, with voice recognition software. My accent is so outrageous (heavy Southern Californian) that eventually the recorded voice started making typing sounds. That went on for a couple of minutes and then the woman’s voice came back on to say, “We are experiencing technical problems. I will now transfer your call to a dying chimpanzee in Outer Mongolia”. The rest of the morning passed away in a manner that you would expect, given the setting.

In any event, when the paper arrived last Monday I thought to spend a little more time with it than usual, inasmuch as I might not be able to get through to the monkey again if the paper failed to show up the next day. I was taken in by the headline on page C3: “Iron Deficiency is a Big Problem for Trees and Shrubs”. Now there was a newsflash! All sorts of “tree-hugging” thoughts came into my mind, what I might do to help the little “dears”, since I have a plethora of the very molecules that the trees and shrubs in Utah seem to need. I read Larry Sagers’ article with rapt attention. I thought that if I spent enough time with the star of KSL’s “The Greenhouse Show” that I would come up with something for my blog. What an optimist I am! He went on ad nauseum about which trees are particularly susceptible to iron chlorosis (silver maples, red maples, sugar maples, Amur maples, birches, dawn redwoods, sweetgums, pin oaks, willows, pears, bald cypresses, crabapples, white pines, cottonwoods, and aspins). Did he stop there? No! He went on to list the shrubs (boxwoods, cotoneasters, flowering dogwoods, hydrangeas, privets, pyracanthas, spireas, roses, raspberries, strawberries, peaches and Concord grapes). I asked myself, “Are there any other kinds of trees or shrubs in the whole state?" (I think not.) "Do I have any of these in my back yard?” (Without question.)

Actually, within a hundred yards of my house, every single one of these varieties is flourishing fabulously well, while the rest of state, according to Uncle Larry, is succumbing to the symptoms of iron chorosis (leaves turning light green, yellow, or white, while the veins remain green). Why is my neighborhood doing so well? Why do you think? I walk around the park, my skin flakes and graying hair flitting about, nourishing everything within wafting distance. The cynic may say, “Hey! You don’t shed enough hair and skill to fertilize ten acres of neighborhood!” That may be, but what I do shed is really, really, really, really good for the plants.

In a fit of boredom last night, I turned on the television and surfed just long enough to find Disney’s “Sky High”. I actually watched about half of it before the predictability of the storyline caused my brain to implode. All of the superheroes were stereotypes, or parodies of stereotypes, save one: Layla Williams as played by Danielle Panabaker. Layla has the power of plant manipulation; she is also a pacifist and a vegetarian. I figured that out early on when she joined her love interest, Will Stronghold, on the roof of his house by causing the apple tree in the yard to grow while she hung on to one of the branches. I said to myself, “There is a girl with hemochromatosis, a superhero with an iron-overloading problem that she has turned into a superpower asset!”

I have decided that this is to be my new calling in life. I am going to be an Ironic Superhero. I am going to drive all over Utah, up and down the I-15, the I-80, and every other major highway in the state. I am going to do that in my wonderful, 1993 Mustang convertible with the top down. I am going to single-handedly cure the woodlands and pastures, the hills and dales, the flora and fauna of the Great Basin Empire. In addition, I will simultaneously stimulate the economy by stopping at every Burger King along the way, with an occasional purchase at a Macy’s supermarket strategically placed along the Wasatch Front. With all that Whopper and maple bar consumption, I will bring peace and harmony to all living things.

Take that, Larry!

Very Super-suspicious

2009-07-03T20:54:00.000-07:00

As it turns out, I have a monitor on my web page that can tell me at a moment’s notice just how many people have visited my website, the city and country where they live, and how much time they have wasted reading my deathless prose. Many of them have been trying to find out detailed information about hemochromatosis, Googling this way and that. With my same little monitor, I can know which words they used in their search engine that brought them to my blog. I find it really interesting that many of them have wanted to know about famous people, how many famous people suffer from my little genetic condition. Odds are, if there are more than 250 famous people in the world, one of their number would be afflicted. When a person types in “hemochromatosis famous people”, my little blog usually shows up in the top five. The searcher dutifully reads my comments which, of course, help them in no appreciable way. The only famous person mentioned in my text in the same breath with “hemochromatosis” is Joni Mitchell, who, as far as I can tell, is not a partaker of our little malaise. I can imagine how disappointed some of these folks must be. I wonder if any of them mutter less-than-salubrious commentary as they “page back” to better sources. In an effort to be a benefit to my readers, I have decided to help these erstwhile researchers out a little, I have decided to do a little research of my own.

My contribution here is not as altruistic as it might seem in the beginning. I was at a loss as to what to write during the next few weeks. “Dancing on the Edge”, my other site, is eclectic enough that I can make regular forays into the arcane on a regular basis. “Hemochromatosis” requires a catalyst of some kind. For some reason, after posting to “Dancing” this last week, I began to have a song go through my mind, one recorded by Stevie Wonder many years ago, thirty years ago in fact. I went to YouTube and listened to three or four versions of it and decided to put the song in my playlist. In an attempt to intellectually honest, however, I asked myself how I could do this without making some sort of reference to my affliction. I decided that I could not, so like any enterprising young man, I tried to make a connection between Stevie Wonder and hemochromatosis. Googling the three words sent me to an interesting website called “BC: Biocritics Sci/Tech”. There I found Stevie Wonder mentioned by name in an article about “simultaneous Arabic translation” (I bet that guy's blog gets a lot of hits too). I read the entire article trying to find “hemochromatosis”; there was nothing. I sort of felt like one of those folks that had been duped into reading my blog after a strenuous fourteen seconds of research. Then I noticed in one of the side-bars an article on hemochromatosis which actually talked about famous people who probably had the genetic condition. Okay, there is the connection between Little Stevie and hemochromatosis and my playlist makes sense. Now on to the famous people.

The article, “Even Celebrities Are Not Immune To Iron Overload -- Speculation and Proof”, is aptly titled, unlike my own little bits and pieces. There is an enormous amount of speculation and the “proof” is about 90 out of 200. The author suggests that Jackie Onassis’ father, Black Jack Bouvier, probably suffered from hemochromatosis because of his dark tan and liver problems. Of course, Black Jack may have spent a lot of time perfecting his sun tan while sipping mint juleps on the patio. In any event, BJB is someone famous, and there are not many of us famous HH types, so we probably ought to include him.

The next fellow that the author suspected as having been afflicted with iron overload was Steve (Terrance Steven) McQueen. I really like it when insiders let us know what the real names of famous people are. I have two of my own: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien and Clives Staples Lewis, neither of whom had hemochromatosis. Steve thought he was dying of overexposure to asbestos. After I read his medical history I decided that the “Great Escape” artist died of multiple “injections of live cells from cows and sheep, coffee enemas, frequent shampoos and massages”. According to Wikipedia, McQueen died of cardiac arrest after undergoing surgery for several large tumors in his abdomen, tumors directly related to mesothelioma. All illnesses aside, Steve McQueen’s best movie was the “Thomas Crown Affair”. I say that it is his best because it’s the only one I have watched clear through, that and “Papillon”.

Next in the litany of hemochromatosis sufferers are the Hemmingways: Ernest, his silblings Ursula and Leicester, his father Clarence, and his granddaughter Margaux. Some sorts have suggested that his suicide and those of the afore-mentioned members of his family happened because of the iron overloading in their brains. Marguax killed herself because of all of the stress associated with the odd spelling of her name. In the case of Ernest, however, it seems reasonable to assume that the extensive electric shock treatments that he received at the Mayo clinic did not do much for his bouts with depression and memory loss, the self-professed reasons that he gave for not wanting to live. All of the Hemingways suffered from alcoholism, a problem far more injurious to the brain than iron-overloading.

Our author also claims that John Steinbeck suffered from hemochromatosis because his son died of the condition. That Steinbeck was a carrier is a given; that he suffered from the disease is not certain. He died of a heart attack caused by the complete occlusion of the main coronary arteries. That effect is caused by over-loading of another kind, not by excessive iron.

Frankly, I think that we ought to look to the real celebrities of the matter. My sister for example. She has to be one of the most famous hemochromatosis sufferers on the planet. She has appeared repeatedly, has been featured prominently, in one of the most widely read websites on the disease: mine. If you were to Google “hemochromatosis” right now, you would find more than 866,000 hits on the web. If you were type in “hemochromatosis” and just about any other word in the English language, like say “Stevie Wonder”, you would find that my blog is listed in the top five out of the 866,000. More than 2600 people world-wide can’t be wrong. That literate body constitutes .0000433 percent of the world’s population, a bevy of geniuses visiting my blog on a regular basis, and every single one of them knows Judie. Now that’s notoriety! Think of it! Without her, you would not be reading any of this stuff!

In the meantime, turn up the volume and click on Little Stevie Wonder’s funky 1972 bit “Superstition” in my playlist. It will make you feel happy (no depression), you’ll give up drinking (it’s hard to keep the rhythm with a snoot full), and you will feel less inclined to stick your finger into a lamp socket (and, as an added benefit, you’ll look less and less like Michael Richards). What could be better than that?

Eeeeek!!!...Yiiiikes!!!... Luuuunch!!!...

2009-06-20T07:56:00.000-07:00

In my last entry, I recounted my little trip to the Infusion Center for my bi-monthly phlebotomy. As part of that narration, I included my observations on various radio and television programs that I thought were germane to the topic. My gimpy nurse had caused a great deal of reflection and I thought that my readers would find my ruminations entertaining, if not completely informative in their quest to know more about my genetic condition that afflicts 1 in every 250 persons on this planet. This is an eclectic blog, one filled with a vast collection of strange facts designed to expand horizons, illuminate minds, and completely distract the reader from the oppressive notion that he or she has an incurable disease. That is why I write it, that is why you should read it.

This past Monday I went to the University of Utah Medical Center to have my bi-monthly ferritin check. I checked in a few minutes before the appointed time. The receptionist said, "'She Who Shall Remain Nameless' will be with you in just a moment; she is out to lunch, but that is over at 1:30".

For some reason I was feeling a little edgy, maybe even a little grumpy. I am not certain why. I suspect that I am tired of being inconvenienced by every mal-functioning organ in my body at a time I would rather be doing something else. Actually, I only have one mal-functioning organ and that is my duodenum, and it is really not mal-functioning as it is over-functioning, slurping three times as much iron out of my daily repasts that the normal human duodenum does. Actually, since I am retired there isn't much that constitutes inconvenience either, except for the debilitating practice of sitting in front of a computer for nine hours a day. Every time I go outside for the phlebotomy or the ferritin check, my Gollum-like eyes have to adjust the the sunlight: "Eeeeek!!! My Preciousssss!!!"

Getting back to the events of Monday afternoon.... Inasmuch as I was feeling a little out of sorts, I replied to the receptionist, "You know, the last time I was here, 'She Who Shall Remain Nameless' returned from lunch and stood over there for fifteen minutes contemplating the grass growing. I have things to do, even if she thinks that I don't."

"Well, Dr. Beeblebrox, I will see to it that that does not happen again," she assured me.

At the appointed hour, the technician showed up and whisked me into the lab, and did her number on me. She was quick, efficient,... and frosty. I would like to think that she was not reciprocating my grumpiness, but I suspect that there was some hidden antipathy lurking about. The 0000-gauge needle without anesthesia I think was a dead giveaway. After I got home, about the time the cotton finger was to come off the hole in my personal dike, I found that while I was not looking, she had carved "SWSRN" over the wound. Yiiiikes!!!!

(Actually, she used the regular, painless needle and there were no initials, but I couldn't figure out any other way to get "Yiiiikes!!!" into the tale. Poetic license.)

I waited for a phone call or a note from "Doc Holliday" during the rest of the week to find out what had transpired over the last two months with only one phlebotomy. I woke up on a couple of occasions wondering how I would react to the ferritin level going up and how I would write about it. "Eeeeek!!!" and "Yiiiikes!!!" immediately came to mind as the title for the blog entry. I thought that I could have fun with that, bringing in the old Batman" television series starring Adam West and Burt Ward. The series was notable for the dead-pan humor and the superimposition of balloon words during the fight scenes, like "POW!", "BAM!", and "ZOKK!". I thought of a thousand things to do with "EEEEEK!!!" and "YIIIIKES!!!". But, "ALAS!!!" it was not to be.

Yesterday the ill-fated and joyless letter arrived. My ferritin level is at 178. Two months ago at the beginning of April, the count was at 223. With only one phlebotomy, I still had dropped 45 points. The last time I went two months between phlebotomies, over Christmas vacation, I dropped 52 points. That was at the point that I was flirting with 400 points or so. What I am surmising from all this is that my body is consistent, sucking up its regular 30% of all of the iron I ingest, without attempting to replace the iron that I lose through blood-letting. It would seem reasonable to assume that for the foreseeable future, each of my bi-monthly phlebotomies will result in about a 50 point loss. Assuming this to be the case, it would follow that in six months, my iron count will be within the realm of universal approval.

Trillium and my sister will be happy, because they want my ferritin count to be less than 50 points. "Doc Holliday" will be happy because his plan will have worked wondrously well. Medicare will be happy because with a phlebotomy and ferritin check every other month or quarterly instead of monthly, they will be able to provide the rest of the nation with benefits past the year 2012, assuming that the Mayans are wrong. I will be happy because I will not be inconvenienced as frequently as I have been.

Well, what about "Luuuunch!!!"? I was surfing the net this morning and came across this picture worth more than a thousand words.

When I got the letter, I celebrated by having two "wheat-dogs" and a left-over pork-loin steak ("YUUUUM!!!"). As the evening drew near, Trillium said, "Isn't it your turn to fix dinner?" I had promised her that I would do that task sometime during the week. I sat at the table with my chin on my hands. She then said, "Why don't you get a Whopper for yourself, a kids-meal for T-ma, and a large strawberry shake for me?" As anyone who has been married for more than 40 years knows, Trillium was simply reading my mind. I decided not to go to Burger King, however. A new place has just opened here in Orem, a franchise out of Chandler, Arizona, called the "Heart Attack Grill". I got myself a "Quadruple Bypass Burger", shown here in living color.

"LUUUUNCH!!!"

Packin’ Iron

2009-05-29T17:57:00.000-07:00

I went to the Infusion center today and had a wave of nostalgia overwhelm me, and this time it was not the brandishing of needles that sent me back into my childhood. Nurse Chappell was limping about the establishment, carrying her odds and ends here and there. I became a little concerned because she usually is so spry. I thought that if she was hobbling about, bringing all of the paraphernalia associated with my phlebotomy, who was going to bring the Barq’s Root Beer and my package of Lorna Doones? My prospects even seemed more grim when the staff sat me down in a dark cubicle and did not turn the light on. From the corner a chorus of dwarvish voices softly chanted “We like the dark… dark for dark business”. Grim, but familiar.

Being in a reflective mood there in the twilight, I tried to imagine what I might do with the gimpy nurse in my next blog entry. My mind immediately went to the George Garabedian Players and their parody of “Gunsmoke”. In the television series which ran for twenty years, Matt Dillon was played by James Arness, Miss Kitty by Amanda Blake, and Chester Goode by Dennis Weaver. What is germane here is that Chester in “Gunsmoke” had a game leg, just like Nurse Chappell at the Infusion Center did today.

Mr. Grillon

[Kissing sounds, female giggles, male says, "mmm".]

[Fester, getting louder and louder:] Mr. Grillon, Mr. Grillon, Mr. Grillon, Mr. GRILLON!

[Kitty and Grillon continue laughing, smooching, billing and cooing and not paying attention throughout.]

[Grillon:] Hunh?

[Fester:] Mr. Grillon, it's Doc.

[Grillon:] Not now, doc, come back later.

[Fester:] No, I'm not doc, I'm Fester. Doc, he's lyin' in the street with an arrah' clean through his neck.

[Grillon:] Not now, Fester, come back later.

[Fester:] No, Mr. Grillon, now it's Doc, and he's hurt real bad there in the street. That's what he's doing.

[Grillon:] Who's there?

[Fester:] Oh, Mr. Grillon, now you just gotta come, now Doc, he's your friend.

[Grillon:] Hunh? Oh, yes, Doc. Uh, get Doc to take out your adenoids and see if that helps.

[Fester, under his breath:] I don't know about that.

[Fester:] You need some hot coffee. Now this thing is serious. Now Doc, he's been hit. He needs your help. Now what'dya figure on doin', Mr. Grillon?

[Grillon:] Oh, Fester, it is you. Can't-cha come back later? An', ah, get the Doc to look at that leg or something .

[Kitty, whispering:] Get rid of him.

[Fester:] The Doc has looked at my leg, Mr. Grillon, and there's nothin' he can do.

[Grillon:] Well, then show him the other one -- try to get a matching set.

[Fester, sighing:] Mr. Grillon, now, now, Doc, he's not gonna make it. Now, that arrah's clean through his neck and he's just lyin' there, right smack in the middle of the street, like. You're the Marshal and I've always looked up to you.

[Grillon:] Fester, you go back out there and make sure it's really Doc, an', ah, check him over real carefully, then let me know.

[Fester:] Well, yes sir. I'll do that checkin'.

[Sound of limping footsteps out, and then back in.]

[Fester:] It's Doc alright, with an arrah right through his neck.

[Grillon:] Which side?

[Fester:] Oh, I didn't check.

[Sound of limping footsteps out, and then back in.]

[Fester:] It's both sides, clear through.

[Grillon:] Through what?

[Sound of limping footsteps out.]

[Fester:] Through what!!

[Sound of limping footsteps back in.]

[Fester:] Wha... throug... ooo, Mist... Do... It's DOC!

[Grillon:] Oh, Doc, of course. Wait there a minute, Doc, I'll be right with you.

[Festus, speaking softly:] Oh, wait there a minute... Obvious... an arrah right through... on there... I do my best. I go back and forth... oh, oh...

[Festus breaks down mumbling and crying.]

I laughed myself silly the first time I heard this bit. I think that I have it on a 45 record somewhere in my collection. The other noteworthy quote from the “Gunsmoke” era is something that Trillium brought to my attention many years ago. During the opening credits of the show, the voice-over says of Matt Dillon’s role as Marshall of Dodge City, “It’s a lonely job, and a chancy!” That’s is exactly how I felt when I went to the Infusion Center alone today, without Trillium, for the first time in ten months.

After having “Gunsmoke” float through my mind, I conjured up another old western that I used to listen to on the radio and then later watched on our 9-inch television: “The Cisco Kid”. Duncan Renaldo played the Cisco Kid, an outlaw that was always in the market to help anyone in trouble, and never ever killed anyone. His side-kick, Pancho, was played by Leo Carrillo, one of my favorite actors of all time. One of the best lines ever attributed to “Pancho” has him saying in dire circumstances, “Let’s went, before we are dancing at the end of a rope,…. without music.” At the end of every episode, “Pancho” would make some sort of bad joke to which his partner would say “Oh! Pancho!", and Leo Carrillo would say, “Oh! Cisco!” and they would ride off into the sunset together. Now this afternoon, after I became a pound or two lighter, I was ready to crack a bad joke and have Trillium cry out, “Oh! Pancho” (I am still getting tubby) and I would then sweetly reply “Oh! Kisyou!” She, however, as I mentioned before, was unavailable for this exchange and I was not about to kiss myself.

I was reminded of my third television western after I got home. About the same time that “Gunsmoke” and the “Cisco Kid” were airing, I also listened to,

Out of the night, when the full moon is bright,
Comes the swordsman known as ‘Zorro’.
This bold renegade carves a ‘Z’ with his blade,
A “Z” that stands for ‘Zorro’

Guy Williams played the lead in “Zorro”. Guy Williams also was the actor who played John Robinson in “Lost in Space”. He would later grow up to look just like Anthony Hopkins. This whole series came to mind as I took the wrapping off my right arm where “Chester” had inserted the needle for my phlebotomy. There, over the hole where the needle had been, was a perfect little “Z” etched into my skin (Trillium will verify that fact). I think that someone has been taking liberties with my elbow when I was not looking. Now if Trillium had been with me, I am certain that the staff would not have been able to play their little joke on me. I can hear her now as they whip out their little tiny swords to do me in and as she pulls out her Colt 45, “Now, you are going to have to ask yourselves, ‘Do you feel lucky?’ Do you?” I pack iron simply because I am genetically predisposed to do so; Trillium packs iron because she has her own little mark on me and doesn’t allow anyone to mess with her man.

Two Snake or Not Two Snake; Is That a Question?

2009-05-19T20:31:00.000-07:00

I guess that I have been in a dream cycle lately, pestered by my mind while the rest of my body is trying to catch a wink or two. I think that my brain was reacting to the fact that I haven’t had much source material of late regarding my erstwhile affliction. In another week I will go in for another phlebotomy; two weeks after that I will go for my ferritin check, and a week later I will have my regular visit with the good “Doc Holliday”. The last month or so have been a wasteland for my gift of sarcasm. The dream cycle has taken various forms, but the one that has bearing for this blog involved a snake, or two, depending on who you talk to.

I usually come up with the title for a posting before I actually write my piece. This past week I woke up with “Iron Serpent” on the brain. “Hmmmm,” I said to myself. “What can I make of that?” I thought about how snakes shed their skin frequently, apparently in an attempt to get rid of vast amounts of unwanted iron. I suspected that the fact that a snake has no hair at all and is devoid of fingernails and toenails, must have been for them the ultimate sacrifice in their battles with hemochromatosis…. As you can tell, I was not yet fully awake. Snakes don't sweat much, which serves as counter evidence to my dream-thought.

I wondered if my little dream image came from my intimate association with the medical profession, with “Doc Holliday” and “She Who Shall Remain Nameless” at the University of Utah Medical Center, or because of “Nurse Gory” and all of his fun playmates down at the Infusion Center. I did not have an immediate answer. As you well know, when I find myself in such a predicament, I resort to the Internet for something charming. Notwithstanding my efforts, I have failed at “something charming” so you are stuck with the remainder of this posting as it is.

Googling “Iron Serpent” proved to be a bust. There is an on-line RPG game by that name which did have some appeal because of all of the virtual blood-letting. I am doubtful, however, that cyber-phlebotomies are going to impress anyone in the medical profession. There was a picture of downtown Cairo, Egypt, entitled “The Iron Serpent”, but I really could not make a direct connection between the picture and our present topic except that a great deal of pig iron has been poured out upon the Egyptian sand recently as a result of the Swine Flu pandemic that has been sweeping the world (there is no shortage of stupidity in this country, by the way, when ordinarily intelligent people begin calling a virus that has killed one-tenth of one percent of the people killed by regular flu, a “menace to billions”). Wikipedia gave me “Steel Serpent”, the arch enemy of “Iron Fist”. I can hardly wait until these Marvel comic book characters make it into a major full-length movie.

I then returned to my first notion about the medical profession and discovered some really bizarre things about the symbols for medicine. Can anyone tell me the difference between the caduceus and the Rod of Asclepius? I thought not. The latter was originally the symbol for ancient Greek medicine. The symbol features a single serpent wrapped around a staff. The staff was to be understood as the symbol of godly authority. The snake has been identified as the rat snake, "Elaphe longissima", a slithering beast which the Romans thought was beneficial to health, but never bothered to explain why they felt that way. Other scholars, in an attempt to raise the gorge of everyone on the planet, have averred that the snake of Asclepius was really a parasitic worm, “dracunulus medicinses”, which had to be extracted from beneath the skin by wrapping it slowly around a stick. This explanation certainly has convinced me as to why I get the willies every time I walk into a hospital.

The “caduceus” or the sign of two serpents wrapped around a winged pole was the device that represented the Greek god Hermes (Mercury in the Roman pantheon). Hermes was the patron lord of gamblers, thieves, tricksters, and alchemists (Hmmm… I am beginning to see a pattern here). By the end of the 16th century, alchemy and medicine had become identified with one another (to say nothing of gamblers, tricksters, and thieves) resulting in the association of the caduceus with medicine. It was not until 1902, however, that the caduceus was adopted by the US Medical Corps. A fellow named Captain Reynolds duped the newly appointed Surgeon General, W.H.Forwood, into accepting the symbol for the Corps. By the time the silliness of the caduceus was realized, too many of the newly minted pins were in use and the US Army was stuck with them forever.

In 1992 a survey of medical organizations was taken regarding their use of the Rod of Asclepius or of the caduceus. Interestingly enough 62% of all professional medical groups in the United States used the Rod, while 76% of the commercial medical organizations touted the caduceus (Hmmmm… the pattern persists). What does iron have to so with all of this? As far as I can tell, absolutely nothing…. except metaphorically.

I believe that there is a little bit of irony involved in the use of the Rod and the caduceus here in Utah Valley. “Doc Holliday” has the caduceus plastered all over his office, and yet I have never felt tricked, robbed, or gambled with during any of my visits with him. The Infusion Center has no symbol as far as I can tell, but I have been just a little fanciful of late and I have concluded that they and their patrons would prefer the Rod of Asclepius. I reported that when I had my last phlebotomy, “Nurse Gory” and his sidekick “Nickle” worked me over in the same spirit that my father and I worked the worm over on the banks of the Middle Fork of the San Joaquin River when I was learning to fish. I am now beginning to suspect that they were after the “dracunulus medicinses” that has taken up residence in my left elbow; the chop stick that “Nurse Gory" had stuck behind his ear really makes sense now.

The Iron Pourri Pot

2009-05-01T07:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Thursday, today is Friday; let's have that perfectly clear.

Last night at dinner Trillium said out loud, "My goodness, it feels like Friday!"

I said, "That is because there were two Wednesdays this week".

T-ma said, "That's impossible!"

I said, "No, think about it. It really is Friday, but since there were two Wednesdays, it is only Thursday".

Trillium looked at me with those wonderful blue eyes and said "Are you trying to drive me crazy? It 'feels' like Friday; it isn't Friday".

"It is all part of the two-Wednesday illusion, Trillium, all you have to....."

T-ma said, "I got up late this morning so I am not really sure what day it is....."

********

When I first started this blog, I tried to mix in a little humor, just to keep myself a little amused. At some point Trillium noted in one of her comments, "You know, you really need to put a disclaimer on your entries. Someone is going to believe every word you say and do themselves irreparable damage".

I replied, "I deal in outrageous hyperbole; there is no need to explain every joke I tell. If a statement I make seems insane, it probably is. People shouldn't have any trouble at all discerning fact from fiction, the real statistics from the fraudulent ones. Anyone who tries to give themselves a self-inflicted phlebotomy by careening down a mountainside without handbrakes probably deserves a concussion".

I have since decided that there is always the possibility that one of my readers may be experiencing a two-Wednesday workweek and, thinking that it is Friday instead of Thursday, may not get my jokes. So I have decided to give you a key by which you can invariably tell when I am telling a whopper, my "tell" as it were. My students discovered many years ago that when I was embarking on a shaggy dog story, that the corners of my mouth would begin to tremble ever so slightly. Once they saw that, they would lean back and simply enjoy the joke. So, there you have it. When the edges of your monitor begin to tremble ever so slightly while you are reading one of my entries, you may know with certainty that I am trying to be funny.

******

Yesterday Trillium and I went to Costco for a few things. We both supplied ourselves with a cart and so we actually ended up with a lot of "few things". I was feeling peckish, inasmuch as I had not as yet had lunch. Everything looked edible. After I had picked up the water softener salt and a few other essential items for the microwave, I met Trillium at the milk cooler. As I was making my way down the aisle, I noticed huge stacks of Honey Bunches of Oats. "I really like those," I said to myself, "Why am I not eating them? There must be a reason." Then I remembered. It was because of the high iron content...... "What.......!!!" I internalized. "There is no animal matter in Honey Bunches of Oats; there is no heme iron in those!" Then I realized that I had made the observation about the iron content last August when I was really being paranoid about the iron content in my body. I had not yet really made a distinction between heme and non-heme iron. So, because of a two-Thursday workweek at the end of summer last year, I have made myself miserable with toast every morning for eight months. What made me think that two pieces of bread with loads of Smart Balance smeared all over them had less iron than a nice bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats? I have no idea.

I turned to Trillium and said, "Why are we not buying Honey Bunches of Oats.....?"

"Cholesterol," she answered sweetly.

*******

I have been doing a little research on cholesterol and hemochromatosis as aspects of one another. It has been hard work, and for that reason most scientists have ignored the field. I found out that Low Density Lipoprotein (as opposed to High Density Lipoprotein) has a tendency to form affectionate relationships with the walls of blood vessels creating what is generally called "plaque". Too much plaque and the vessel is blocked, causing a stroke, a heart attack, or a two-Monday workweek. Hence, LDL is often called "bad cholesterol". HDL, IDL, VLDL, and chylomicrons (I'll let you work these abbreviations out for yourself) apparently are a little more anti-social and can be called (at least HDL can be) "good cholesterol". Cholesterol of all kinds are actually necessary for life. Our bodies need the fat (lipo-) in the cholesterol and it can only be transported to the cells of the body through the water-based blood system. It is the "sticky" LDL that causes the problem......

You should be bored out of your mind at this point.....

I know I am.....

Learning that my cholesterol problems are directly associated with my hemochromatosis problems was a great relief to me and I hope to you as well. I have, as a result of my studies, come up with a recommendation or two.

First, when you go to have your phlebotomy, do not allow the nurses to take the blood from one of your veins in your arms. Make them take it from your waist somewhere. While they are digging around for a blood vessel they can at the same time do a little "lipo-suction" (did you see the "lipo-" part? That is the "bad fat"!) Reducing the body fat once a month will keep you and your doctor happy.

I was happy to discover that having a regular phlebotomy reduces the amount of LDL coursing through your veins, although I have to say that my source regularly has two-Tuesday workweeks and is not completely reliable. His nurse told him that the LDL count can be reduced by ten percent with each phlebotomy. Wow! The way I figure it, three more bloodlettings and I will be out of the "Woods of Angina". I now stand at 130 LDL; one phlebotomy would drop me to 117; a second would drop me to 106; the third would reduce it to 96, four points into high normal. What a deal! Another two-fer! The scary part is where my blood cholesterol must have been before I started my therapy. According to my mad math skills, my LDL would have stood at 251 in August and my blood vessels would have looked like gummy worms.

The "fly in the lipoprotein", however, is the fact that I know that a year ago, when I had my last complete blood work-up, that my various cholesterols were just about as they are now. "Doc Holliday" is concerned about where I am at, but my medical history does not justify any enthusiasm for the "phlebotomy-over-statins" technique of dealing with my weight or my hardening arteries. I only have one question now: What am I going to do with the ten-pound box of Honey Bunches of Oats that I bought yesterday?

*******

If you, by now, have not figured out the significance of the title of this entry, there are not enough days in the week to explain it to you.

The Origins of Hemochromatosis

2009-04-12T08:30:00.000-07:00

There are many uncertainties in the universe, but there is one thing that you can count on: when there are two months between phlebotomies, something like that which follows is bound to happen.

“Why me?” This is a cry heard around the world, uttered by one out of every 250 people. “Why is my duodenum extracting every molecule of iron out of my beef burrito and stuffing it into my liver, pancreas, heart, and brain?” Well, as it happens, I have an answer. Actually I have two answers; in matters of such import, a plethora of explanations cannot help but illuminate. Both of these theories have currency. They are at the heart of the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, about which your humble correspondent has some expertise.

The first theory as to why there is iron overloading at all is called "The Big Iron Bang Theory". Approximately 13 billion years ago (you know, when I was a kid going to school, my teachers told me that this event took place 3 billion years ago; time flies when you are having fun), the universe did not exist. There were no stars and planets, no galaxies of any shape or size. In fact, there were no elements as we know them today, just an enormous number of sub-atomic particles living together in an extremely small condominium. Again, about 13 billion years ago, some sort of accident took place; the condo was condemned and all of the sub-atomic particles fled the inner-city to the suburbs. This shift in demographics fundamentally changed all of the sub-atomic particles. Some became hydrogen; in fact most of them became hydrogen. According to Carl Sagan, for every atom of any other element, there are “billions upon billions” of hydrogen atoms. In honor of the great astronomer, this ratio of “billions upon billions to one” is affectionately referred to as a “Sagan” (pronounced with emphasis, it becomes a "Shy-Sagan"). So, as a result, helium is hard to come by, as is oxygen, nitrogen, and argon. Seaborgium and Ununbrium are difficult to pick up at Wal-Mart as well. Iron, as it turns out, is a rare earth metal when compared to the amount of hydrogen bouncing around the universe. Why, then, do I end up with so much of it?

I was watching PBS yesterday and I found out why. It all has to do with the life of a star. In the beginning, a star is formed by the aggregation of an immense number of Bok globules, several Shy-Sagan-Sagan’s worth....... At this point, astronomers want to talk about hydrostatic equilibrium, Herbig-Haro objects, and proto-planetary disks. This, however, would be a digression from our main theme, so we will push on.....

When a star first flares into existence, its business is the fusing of hydrogen atoms together into helium atoms. The more helium there is at the core of the star, the brighter the star becomes. This continues for about 90% of the star’s life. As the star ages, it suffers what Sagan and his boys call “metallicity”, the dreaded creation of elements other than helium. At first, the process merely fuses helium into such innocuous particles like oxygen and carbon, but the malady continues with the specter of the “carbon-burning process”; the “neon-“ , “oxygen-“, and “silicon-burning” processes quickly follow. As might be expected, there is a point of diminishing returns, and that point is when iron is produced by fusion and the star cannot get rid of it. So, you guessed it, the star stuffs the iron into its own liver, pancreas, heart, and brain. Eventually, the inert iron core becomes so massive (about 1.4 times the mass of our own sun) that it collapses under its own weight and a supernova occurs, splattering all of the iron and all of the other elements all over the place, to be used in the formation of planets and all of the life on them. What no one has figured out before, but which I am sharing with you now, is that there are some stars that produce and store three times the amount of iron as regular stars. These are hemochomatosis stars.

Joni Mitchell, a famous songwriter and erstwhile astronomer, wrote a song in 1969 called “Woodstock” in which she explains why it is that we are all the way we are, why it is that I, my sister, and one out of every 250 people on this planet have hemochromatosis. The tag of the song, the chorus if you will, is as follows:

We are stardust
We are golden

And we’ve got to get ourselves

Back to the garden

So there you have it. The disturbing thing about all of this is that no matter what I do, I am gaining more weight. I play racquetball with Jenny for six weeks and I put on six pounds. I resort to eating nothing but heads of lettuce for lunch and I can’t fit into my suit pants. I fear that I am no longer in the hydrogen-fusing stage of my existence. I am a “red-giant” ready to collapse into a “white dwarf”. All I need is just another solar mass of iron before my heavy metals can be blasted all over the earth. It’s time to defrost the tri-tips.

The other theory explaining the existence of hemochromatosis is called the “Intelligent Wrought-Iron Design Theory”, but at present we can only talk about that in the state of Texas.

The Iron Mean

2009-04-04T07:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to visit with the good “Doc Holliday” to find out what kind of condition my condition was in. To everyone’s delight, my ferritin had dropped to 223, 170 points down from January and 600 points down from last August (I say “to everyone’s delight”, only because Trillium and Judie had not, as yet, seen the numbers; they want me to be completely de-magnetized). We spent an hour together poking and prodding each other; he physically, I informationally. All of my organs appear to be in good working order (he thumped and poked a couple of these). Therefore, the hemochromatosis prognosis is good. I am supposed to go to the Infusion Center for a phlebotomy once every two months (bad news for the boys and girls in that institution). Since I dropped fifty points doing that from November to January, I am not opposed to the treatment.

After reviewing all of the blood work, “Doc” thought that my triglycerides were high (248; the high end of normal being 149). My HDL was one point below normal (39 instead of somewhere between 40 and 60). My LDL was 30+ points higher than the extreme (130 instead of between 0 and 99). Some of this could be explained by the fact that I was not fasting at the time the blood was drawn. That’s my story anyway. The truth probably has to do with the number of maple bars and “wheat dogs” that I have eaten during the last couple of weeks…. along with the potato chips, the salt water taffy, and the leftover Chocolate Christmas Oranges that I have been compelled to eat (by compelled, I mean that they were left out in plain sight). He said that I need to exercise (“Ooooohhhhhh! Nooooooooo!”) and change my eating habits (dirt instead of food).

I asked “Doc Holliday” what would happen if I did not pay attention to these numbers, if I just went on my merry way, content that I was not part of the static electricity generating machinery of the planet. He said, “Well, there is a .5 percent chance that you could have a heart attack or a stroke in the next five years.” I then asked what would happen if I went on this regimen that he was suggesting, a procedure that would mean that every time I ate something it would seem like I was grubbing for truffles in the back yard. He replied with a smile, “Well, your risk would be reduced to a .25 percent change of a heart attack or a stroke.”

“So,” I said, “What you are saying to me is that the odds of my not having a stroke or heart attack are 99.5 to 1 if I keep on eating what I am eating, but if I switch to daily doses from my compost pile I can improve my odds to 99.75 to 1.”

“That’s essentially it. Isn’t medicine wonderful? Aren’t you glad you came to seek my advice about all of this? Welcome to the club, brother; we are all going to be miserable together!” I went home with mixed emotions, which I quickly unmixed by having a handful of sour cream and onion potato chips, followed by a pork loin sandwich.

This morning I thought better of all of this and decided that I needed to be a little more rational. During my slumbers I had the phrase “the Golden Mean” pass through my mind several times, together with the phrase “the Iron Mean”. Not wanting to ignore communications from my “space pillow”, I came down early this morning to flesh out this entry by Googling the two phrases. Needless to say, I have enough material now for about six 5000-word essays.

There are four major “Golden Mean” entries to be found on the web. The first is an epistolary novel by Nick Bartoch, the third in the “Griffin and Sabine” trilogy. It sounds boring and since Bartoch lives in British Columbia, it probably is; the book is no doubt beautiful, but boring none the less, kind of like Vancouver.

The second entry has to do with mathematics. I read several articles on the “Golden Triangle”, the “Golden Rectangle”, and the special relationship between a man’s belly button and his nose. The conclusion that I came to was that Johannes Kepler and his fellow mathematicians all had a thing for maple bars and pork loin sandwiches and did not beat the odds. The best thing that can be said about all of their number crunching is that the whole universe may be reduced to the square root of the number 5 divided by 2. These guys may also have been suffering from undetected hemochromatosis with ferritin counts in excess of 1,618,033, all of the iron having been deposited in their brains. I was not impressed.

The third is an Aristotelian concept, suggesting that the relationship between truth and beauty may be mathematically quantified. All the numbers aside, however, the simplest redaction of his ideas may be stated thusly: “Both beauty and truth have symmetry, proportion, and harmony”. I had noted this already in the perfect dimensions of the “Maple Rectangle”.

The fourth articulation of the “Golden Mean” was conjured up by Confucius in the sixth century BC. It is sometimes called the “Unwobbling Pivot”, or the “chung yung”. In this philosophy the mind is to be in a state of constant equilibrium (a kind of intellectual mugwumpism that does not include maple bars or pork loin sandwiches; no extremes of any kind). The advocate of the “Golden Mean” never leaves the path of duty (he does exactly what his doctor, his wife, and his sister tell him). The man that observes the “Golden Mean” is a gentle teacher and never has contempt for his inferiors (which leaves out sarcasm, broad humor, and just about anything that makes me laugh, including this blog). And finally, a man of the “Golden Mean” always behaves himself according to his status in the world (What in the world does that mean?).

I have concluded that I am not fit for any of the preceding definitions of the "Golden Mean" and have decided that I should be an advocate for the “Iron Mean”. I Googled that phrase later this morning and found that there was actually such a thing as the “Iron Mean”. Here is the mathematical formula for the "Iron Mean":

“The percentage of time I love you now far exceeds the moments when I want to brain you with a skillet”.

Iron reduction, truth, and beauty are all interrelated! This is the key to Einstein’s Unified Field Theory! I need another maple bar to see if I am right!

On Tenderhooks

2009-03-19T08:02:00.000-07:00

(Yes, yes, I know. “Tenderhooks” should be spelled “Tenterhooks” but I always wanted to start an essay with a parenthetical statement.)

I cannot recall the first time that I heard the phrase “being on tenterhooks”, but I was certain that I heard “tenderhooks”. I knew what it meant simply by understanding what “hooks” were and regardless of what the other two syllables sounded like, if one were on a “hook” it could not be a good thing. I now know precisely what the derivation of the word is and I can assure you that whether you are literally or metaphorically on “tenterhooks,” it is not a good thing.

I went to the Infusion Center yesterday and had a pint drawn. It was a memorably nostalgic experience (Yes, yes, I know, “memorably nostalgic” is a kind of double negative or a semantic reduplication, but I really mean what the words say.) None of the lady nurses would have anything to do with me this time around. They sent “Gory” and his little UVU side-kick “Nickel” to work me over. The first thing that “Gory” said to me when he arrived with his basket of medieval instruments was, “Hi! My name is ‘Gory” and this is my little UVU side-kick ‘Nickel’” (This, of course, constitutes meta-fictional redundancy because I already told you that in the previous sentence.) “Would you mind if ‘Nickel’ does the phlebotomy? She is a nursing student and is only here today during her clinical. She wants to be party to as much blood-spla….., er…, as many medical procedures as possible.”

“Sure,” I replied. “I haven’t long to live anyhow. You might as well move things along.”

“Thanks!” He then turned to the little nursing student, who looked like she was twelve, and began giving her instructions. It was then that I had the memorably nostalgic experience. I was taken back sixty years to the banks of the Middle Fork of the San Joaquin River. My family was camped at Red’s Meadows, then a primitive camping site near Devil’s Postpile in central California. My Dad was taking me fishing for the first time and was teaching me how to bait a hook. Gory’s voice echoed every word my father said to me.

“First you have to find a big juicy one…. Try that one there…. Right…. Now take the point and push it right into the center… Ooops! That went just a little too far. Back it up…. Move it to the left a little…. Now push it in as far as it will go…. Ooooohhh, sorry about that! That’s okay; I have another one over here.”

Then “Gory” turned to me. “You seem a little tense, Dr. Beeblebrox. And clammy! My, you are moist! Dr. Beeblebrox? Dr. Beeblebrox? Zaphod? Are you alright?” Everything went mercifully black for a while. That constituted my literal "tenterhook" episode of the week.

Now I have to wait two weeks in order to have my blood drawn for a check of ferritin levels. I am really curious about this because my last evaluation was in January when my ferritin count had dropped to under four hundred points. Remember that I had started this whole thing with a count of 826, but with each monthly phlebotomy the count dropped an average of 120 points. When I did not have a phlebotomy in December, my ferritin only dropped 50 points or so over the two months. It was then I determined to have a pint drawn in both February and March prior to my annual physical with “Doc Holliday”. If the previous regimen is any indication, I should drop another 240 points of ferritin putting me at about 150 or so. But I will not know for certain until another three weeks have passed. The metaphorical “tenterhook” aspect in all of this is the wait; I want to know now if all that has been going on since the first of the year has been productive, particularly since I am the one who inserted the extra phlebotomy into the calendar. I would really like to know if I have played the fool in this matter. I am, however, as optimistic as ever.

Now for those of you who have been on "tenterhooks" (either literal or metaphorical), wanting and waiting to know the linguistic origins of the word “tenterhook” I submit the following: A “tenter” is a rack or frame upon which woolen or other cloths have been “stretched” after having been washed or dyed. Etymologically, “tenter” derives from the Latin past participle of “tendere” meaning “to stretch”. (Note the “d” in the Latin word; I always seem to intuitively know the right spelling.) Some scholars have also suggested that the word has been influenced by the Middle French word “teindre”, a word meaning “to dye” (But can you trust anyone who likes to eat frogs’ legs?) The tenterhooks were curved nails driven through the frames of the “tenter” which were used to stretch the cloth so that it might retain its intended shape and size. “Tenters” were set out in “tenterfields” to dry. For those of you who are as compulsive as I am about these sorts of linguistic issues, the edges of the cloth that are placed on the “tenterhooks” are called “selvages”, the coarse woven border that usually is discarded when the cloth is finally cut to pattern. This is kind of like the pint of blood that “Gory” and “Nickel” threw away yesterday after dinking around with my veins.

An Open Letter to Ironoverload.info

2009-03-07T10:49:00.000-08:00

I began this blog about eight months ago with a desire to accomplish two things. First, I wanted to face my affliction by finding out as much as I could about it and, second, attempt to do so in a humorous way. I find that dealing with problems, even serious medical problems, with a degree of jocularity makes me feel better about the whole thing. This is not everyone’s cup of tea (see below), but it is mine. During these seven months, more than 1900 people have looked at my entries, spending an average of 14 minutes per visit reading the stuff I have been cranking out. I would like to think that it is because I have a deft hand at providing information while inserting a little broad humor along the way (hmmm... maybe it is the reverse).

I have made unblushing fun of myself, my little paranoias and other personality quirks. I have made unblushing fun of my family members and friends, medical personnel and administrators, and even my internet service provider. Everyone has been fair game. I have even provided what I think is pretty good music, even though I know that many of my readers turn the volume down so they can more effectively wade through my rhetoric.

I have enjoyed most of the comments that I have received, though I must admit that the vast majority of them have been from people that I know and love. What a surprise to receive a note from the head of the Hemochromatosis Society in Canada, encouraging me in my attempts to get the American Red Cross to relent in their prohibition of hereditary hemochromatosis sufferers from donating blood on a regular basis! I don’t think that I have been very effective, hardly at all, but I was flattered in any event.

Another fellow, “W.Pat” he signs himself, has also left comments from time to time. His, however, have not been personal comments, but rather little information bombshells dropped in his own inimitable “cut-and-paste” technique. I suppose that I would not take umbrage with his entries except for two things: first, he copies the same thing over and over again, and second, he isn’t funny. What’s up with that? So, having someone walk up to the mouth of my verbal cannon, sticking himself headfirst down the hole, and shouting “Fire”, I feel obliged to respond in the only way I know how. Hold on to your bootstraps “W.Pat”!!!!

I am including below “W.Pat”’s latest comments, conveniently divided up into numbered paragraphs. His text is in italics; my piffle is in normal type. I realize that is counterintuitive, but, hey, this is my story!

1. Learn more about hemochromatosis at my blog than your doctor even knows. Preventing cancer of the liver is crucial. Medications should only be used when absolutely necessary. Hemochromatosis sufferers that test with elevated liver enzymes, must avoid acetemetaphen altogether and alcohol should be avoided.

Well, W.Pat, as it turns out my physician, “Doc Holiday”, knows quite a bit about hemochromatosis because I have been as instructive off-computer as I have been on-computer. As it turns out, he too is a technocrat and knows how to “google” just about anything, and I know that he has been diligent about it because I see his cyperprints everywhere I go. As to “medications”, I assume that you are talking about medications to control hemochromatosis, even though there are no such medicines. The only known effective treatment for hemochromatosis is blood-letting, an ancient yet proven method for dealing with my hereditary disease. Acetemetaphen is harder to avoid than both alcohol and liver since hardly anyone has taken the time to find out what that mouthful means. With any luck at all, it will turn out to be another B-vitamin. With regard to avoiding alcohol, every person on the planet would benefit from avoiding alcohol, not just those of us who have livers at risk because of excess iron

2. Foods containing calcium such as cottage cheese, yogurt, carrots, etc are great for slowing down iron absorbtion.

If by “absorbtion” you mean “absorption” I whole-heartedly concur. It would seem reasonable that if you are hammering down vast quantities of dairy products and vegetables there is not going to be a whole lot of room left for red meat. Calcium should be on the menu anyway for old geezers like ourselves. We wouldn’t want to die of “SpoungeBob” disease before some hereditary infirmity carried us off to an open-pit iron mine in northern Minnesota.

3. Too much iron in the liver is worsened with booze.

As it turns out the reverse to also true; too much iron in the booze brings a whole new meaning to “hard liquor”. I have not consumed any alcohol of any kind in fifty years. That is one of the reasons that hereditary hemochromatosis has not had its way with me.

4. Drinks that have tannins work very well also. Black tea and my favorite, green tea are very helpful. Most herb teas do not contain tannins.

Well, “Dr. W.Pat”, as it turns out there are problems with the tannins and their kin that appear in black and green teas. For all of the benefits that might come with regard to inhibiting iron absorption, there are serious liabilities such that I would never recommend the drinking of these teas that you suggest. Why compound your health issues?

5. Vitamin C enhances the absorption of iron. It is wise only to consume a moderate amount and not take Vitamin C tablets. Vitamin C has been known to precipitate heart palpitations in those with hemochromatosis.

I agree. This is a precept that I have been pounding into the heads of my readers for months. Hopefully, your “coffin-nail” comment will cause them to swear off this malignant vitamin and we can all enjoy a good dose of scurvy.

6. The ingestion of black tea has been shown to decrease the absorption of iron. African tea which is becoming popular may contain iron so too much should not be consumed.Patients with hemochromatosis should not take supplements unless there are documented deficiencies.

There appears to be an echo in this rhetoric. See paragraph #4. With regard to African tea, EVERYTHING CONTAINS IRON AND SO TOO MUCH SHOULD NOT BE CONSUMED! If everyone would follow that advice, we would have less obesity in this country.

7. In severe HH the disorder manifests as potentially life threatening conditions such as septicemia, cirrhosis of the liver, liver cancer, diabetes, heart failure and heart arrhythmias.

All of these conditions are side-effects and no one need worry about any of them if their ferritin levels have been brought under control in time. I have none of these ancillary disorders because my sister bugged the daylights out of me to have the blood work done and because my physician, who is as well-informed on my condition as anyone on the planet (see paragraph #1), has put me on a course of phlebotomies that has effectively brought my ferritin levels down to a moderately safe level, notwithstanding all of the fun I have been poking at him along the way. I started out with my ferritin at 826 or so and a couple of months ago, my ferritin stood at 392. My guess is that my ferritin level will be below 100 when I see him next. These intervening phlebotomies will do the trick. That and the fact that I have cut back my “wheat-dog” consumption to only six per week.

8. Hemochromatosis sufferers should drink lots of water every day to keep the blood thin for easier phlebotomies and to keep the kidneys nice and flushed out.

I drink vast amounts of water because I don’t drink vast amounts of booze. I have a Barq’s Root Beer from time to time and although it sounds like I am swilling down alcohol and caffine, it is not the case. I live in Utah, after all, and Barq’s has to tone their stuff down for us. A flushed out kidney is nice, as fresh as a spring morning.

9. For people who are diagnosed and treated early, normal life spans are possible. If left untreated, HH will lead to critical organ damage and most likely death.

Anyone who knows me is aware that there is nothing normal about me. I am the personification of abnormality, notwithstanding the diagnosis and the treatment of my genetic condition. My paternal grandfather lived into his mid-90s; my maternal grandmother lived to be 101. I don’t think that I am going anywhere soon unless I am taken out by some booze-soaked, red-meat-eating barbarian from California who decides to cross the median on I-15 while I am on my way to the store to pick up an extra gallon of fish oil. As to the death benefit, as far as I can tell, that eventuality is going to transpire no matter what we do. Embrace the fact!

10. You can find lots of real life tips from Pat at his blog:

No doubt, but what you will not find is my kind of humor. The only kind of “real life tips” that I might provide will be cooking on the barbeque as soon as the snow melts. Come on up, “W.Pat”, my tri-tip steaks are to die for…. literally.

11. Http://ironoverload.info

There is the web-site. Go in peace.

Looking for Iron in All the Wrong PLaces

2009-03-05T04:22:00.000-08:00

The last three weeks have been boring. Boring! Boring! Boring! But boring can be good, as you are about to discover for yourself.

My usual cast of characters are in retirement, or at least in a state of grace. Barnacle Raff and I have not been biking for about three months. He says that it has something to do with the enormous snowfalls that we have had this winter. I think it has to do with the number of times he has had to carry my limp and unconscious body to the stoop. The Krrrrakin has told Medicare that all of my bones have been properly arranged and that I need not return, on pain of death. The boys and girls at the Infusion Center have boarded up the doors and windows of their office so that no one taller than five foot eleven can get into the place. That's okay, I really don't have to storm the castle for another three weeks. Doc Holliday said that if I showed up at his establishment before the 15th of April he would issue a restraining order. That is about the time I was planning on going there in any event, so no harm no foul. So the fodder for my verbal cannon is out of range, insofar as the medical industry is concerned. That has been the case for three weeks and will continue for another three weeks until I have another pint drawn.

My daily bouts with the computer have continued, however, and I am well along in my writing, finishing one book, starting another, and plowing through the second half of a third. For those of you who are interested in philately (in sixty-six years I have only met three people so afflicted), I have managed to mount more than 43,000 of my little pieces of colored paper, 41K in the last three weeks. I think that I have the materials for an obsession here. TG2 and I have continued to beat the daylights out of each other at the Rec Center. Yesterday Jen said that she had never seen me move as fast as I did playing. I think that I have become a little more agile with less iron.

Not having my ferritin levels checked for a while has made me a little nervous about what I eat. Trillium and I have only been to a restaurant two times in three weeks. We had lunch at Cafe Rio and, in the spirit of living dangerously, I had a chicken tostada. Later, we went to Subway and I plunged into the iron-acquisition mode by ordering a 6-inch Subway Club. The turkey and roast beef were cut "bridal-veil" thin so that with all of the rabbit food on the bun I suspect that not much in the way of hard iron really made it into my system. At home I indulged myself in a new culinary delight by having a tin of lemon-pepper kipper snacks. I am certain that there is a joke in this, but for the life of me I can't think of one.

As to our experience with Comcast, I should probably give you an up-date. After the first fellow came and complained bitterly about my splitters and all, he assured me that someone would be out to fix the problem on the pole. I waited three weeks for an improvement. None came. I called the service number provided and had a chat with "Jake" who said that he would put two of his specialists on it right away. Dispatch called a couple of hours later to tell me that I did not need two specialists, only one. I said that I had entertained two already, separately, one for the house and one for the pole, and there had been no improvement. She basically then called "Jake" a liar by saying that they never send two technicians at a time to the same house. I told her that I had a blog about this sort of thing that was being read by hundreds of people in over twenty nations and that she was fast entering into my range of verbal fire. The house technician showed up soon thereafter to discover what had been discovered three weeks earlier; the pole technician showed up the same day and did what he had failed to do three weeks earlier. The internet seems to be fine now. So..... on to sweating iron.

Apparently it is possible to sweat iron. I include below a clip taken from the Palo Alto Medical Foundation site which seems to be moderately well-informed.

Iron and your body

Iron is an essential mineral in the human body playing an important role in many different types of cells and proteins. The adult body contains 3-4 grams of iron. The majority of this, approximately 2.5 grams, is circulating in the blood as part of the oxygen-carrying protein hemoglobin which is present in red blood cells. One gram of iron is found in tissues as part of the iron storage protein ferritin; most of this extra iron is stored in the liver. Other iron-containing proteins and enzymes that use iron as part of chemical reactions in tissues account for approximately 400 mg of additional iron. A smaller amount of iron is circulating in blood plasma bound to an iron carrying protein known as transferrin. This protein combines with iron that has been absorbed from intestinal cells and carries it to the cells that need it. Cells signal their need for iron by placing receptors for transferrin receptors on their surface. Another protein called HFE is involved in regulating the amount of iron that is absorbed from the intestine and then distributed throughout the body. In hereditary hemochromatosis excess iron is absorbed for unclear reasons, and the most common genetic mutations leading to hereditary hemochromatosis are in this HFE gene.

Iron enters and leaves the body in several ways. The average western daily diet contains 15-25 milligrams of iron of which ten to twenty percent is absorbed. Additional iron may be obtained from vitamin supplements or blood transfusions. The primary location for the absorption of iron is the first part of the small intestine (duodenum). Iron is lost from the body slowly by several different mechanisms. Sweat carries a small amount of iron with it, and loss of aged cells from the skin, digestive tract and urinary tract account for about 1 mg of iron loss per day. Menstrual bleeding results in a small amount of continued blood loss in pre-menopausal women. Small amounts of iron may also be lost in blood from the digestive tract, for example from stomach irritation or colon polyps.

Now don't you feel learned? I discovered another article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that proposed that sitting in a sauna for extended periods of time (about an hour or so) would bring about iron reduction through sweat, on average about 50 nano-grams per liter of sweat. I don't know about you, but I am concerned about the boys at AJCN. Who thought this study up? (To be fair, Doctors Brune, Magnussen, Perssen, and Halberg, Swedes all.) Where did they get the money? (Since the article was written in 1986 by a pack of Swedes, it is unlikely that we will be able to blame the Obama administration. Although.....) How did they convince 11 people to spend 60 minutes stewing in a Swedish bath? (My guess is that they simply invited seven of their friends over to the house.) Who did they persuade to shovel out all of the liquid iron from the sauna? (Probably a graduate assistant; been there, done that.) And what did they do with all of the results of their study? (It is probably in the same place that the German scholars stored their thirty-foot pile of dead human skin cells. See an earlier blog entry on this study. On second thought, don't see the earlier blog on this study. Once is enough).

Wasn't that worth the wait? Aren't you glad that my daughter asked that fateful question, "Dad, can you sweat iron?" I know that I am glad. Now I think I am going to mess with my music list.

Sweating Cannonballs

2009-02-12T07:38:00.000-08:00

About twice a week TG2 and I go to the Orem Rec Center to play racquetball. Both of us are trying to lose weight and we think that by vigorously exercising for an hour or two a week we will be the Biggest Losers. To date I have gained three pounds. I have no idea where it is coming from. The up side is, however, that I may very well be dropping my ferritin level by playing.

On our way back home Monday TG2 asked, "Hey! Can you sweat iron?"

"What?"

"I said, 'Can you sweat iron?' Kind of like sweating bullets".

Being a clever sort, I replied, "Actually, bullets are typically made of lead and brass; not much iron in them. I suppose that I could sweat cannonballs, if it were possible to perspire the iron out of my body." Being a dutiful father, I decided to find out just what the relationship was between sweat and iron-overloading.

I went on-line this morning, or at least tried to. We have been having trouble with Comcast's feed to us. I called their service center last week and a fellow came out to check our system. He tried to tell me that it was because of the 437 splitters that I have on my house lines that my signal wasn't working properly. He also testified that the splitters I was using were not especially for the internet and therefore would not serve. I told him that I had put that system together over two years ago and did not begin having any problems until a few weeks ago. He became very quiet. He went about his business which took him out to our phone/cable box at the southeast corner of the house. From there he made his way through the snow to the box in my neighbor's yard and from there to the pole on the fence line that holds the main lines high in the sub-freezing winter winds of Utah Valley. After a few minutes the technician returned to inform me that the problem was probably due to some antiquated connectors on the pole and that in a day or two someone would come out to our place and change the divider out so our signal would be proper. He left and we have not heard from Comcast since. What does this mean?

What it means is that when I went on-line this morning to look up the connection between "sweat" and "iron", I discovered that there was no connection between me and the server. The net result in all of this is that I am going to have to make up something. My guess is that exuding iron molecules while playing racquetball is probably not possible. Would I not come back from the Rec Center looking like I had just rolled around in the dirt in St. George? What is true, is that I look like I should be put under the dirt when I come back from the Rec Center.

I have decided, however, that I did deplete some of my iron-overload last Monday as a product of TG2's mad racquetball skills. The first iron loss took place as the result of a rather magnificent volley early in the first game. TG2, mustering all of her strength, leaped for a fast ball that was sliding by my left side. She whacked me and the ball at the same time. She hit me on the thumb-knuckle of my left hand, scraping off three or four million skin cells with that singular blow. Iron loss! I also had immediate subcutaneous bleeding that eventually decorated my hand in various shades of puke-green and yellow. I would like to think that that event constituted a mini-phlebotomy, but alas it was not to be; the bruise was simply absorbed by my pancreas.

Mid-way through the second game (I was now playing with my right hand), TG2 made another one of her magnificent grand slams, accelerating the ball to a speed approaching Mach 4. The ball hit me in the middle of the back of my head, bounced off the ceiling, ricocheted off three walls and eventually came to rest in a corner where it lay smouldering. TG2 was laughing hysterically. I was trying to figure out what all of the skinny brown snow was drifting about the court. It was my hair! Another massive iron-depletion!

We finished the third game and began the trip home. This, as you will remember, was when she asked the question about sweating bullets. My left foot started to pain me some and by the time I reached Star Gazers Point I felt the need to pull off my shoe to see what was going on. By the look of things, I was again the victim of another of TG2's athletic skills. At some point she must have stepped on my foot, squashing the pinky toe. It was all red and the nail looked like it was ready to fall off. Hooray! More major iron loss!

For those of you hoping for something more insightful, I apologize. I had hoped to be more insightful, I really wanted to be more informative, but Comcast is the culprit. I know that out there somewhere is some hemochromatosis scholar who is on the cusp of discovering the connection between the second sweat gland behind everyone's right earlobe and iron overloading. Oh happy day! But not today.

Two Notable Iron Reductions

2009-02-05T09:14:00.000-08:00

This week I had two major iron-reducing procedures. The first was my regular phlebotomy at the local Infusion Center. I was attended to by the "Pink Lady" who was jovial, to the point, and managed to analyze every joke I told. I persisted at my vain attempts at veiny humor because there was, in the three-sided cubical across from me, three or four people who looked like they needed cheering up. Some sort of procedure was going on over there and it wasn't a blood-letting. I don't think it was a blood-getting either. Given the rather grim countenances twenty feet away, I suspect that there was something rather serious transpiring, far more significant than the little iron-depleting exercise I was going through. The "Pink Lady", in her attempt to keep me cheerful during my soap opera with the 14-gauge needle, regaled me with the significance of all of the letters that were printed under her name on her tricked-out name tag. She had an RN degree, a Bachelor's of Nursing, and a credential of some kind that meant she was a master mechanic in all thing vascular. She told me that she needed all of that sort of book-learning in order to administer chemo-therapy, something that regularly happened at the Infusion Center. Suddenly I thought I knew what was happening across the way and why everyone was more than willing to be jollied up by my gasping humor.

While we were there, I asked the "Pink Lady" to let me know what my hemoglobin level was. Inasmuch as I was stepping outside my normal role as patient and doctoring myself by throwing in this extra phlebotomy, I thought that discretion was in order. (Actually, Trillium thought that discretion was in order, but if I gave her credit for everything I came up with, I would be truthful, but not worth very much as far as the public perception of my logical thinking skills is concerned.) My understanding is that 12-14 hemoglobin in an adult male is about right. As might be expected, my level a couple of days ago at the Center was 16 or so, high in almost anybody's book. Phlebotomies are not making me anemic.

Which brings me to micro- and macro-cytosis. My sister commented on a previous blog (and in numerous phone calls) that I might very well be afflicted with macrocytosis along with everything else (actually there isn't anything else except for the iron-overloading, but at the moment I wrote the sentence I was feeling a little sorry for myself). Again, as might be suspected, these two afflictions have to do with the size of one's blood cells, "macro-" being too big, and "micro- being too small.

I went to Wikipedia, my source for all things unknown and unknowable, and picked up the following: "Macrocytosis is the enlargement of red blood cells with near-constant haemoglobin concentration, and is defined by a mean corpuscular volume (MCV) of greater than 100 femtolitres (the precise criterion varies between laboratories)." I followed the definition for the first eight words and then blacked out until the parenthetical statement. I want to know what it all means, but I suspect that it is not worth the effort. But I did want to know in the worst way what a "femtolitre" is. Back to Wiki: "The femtolitre (US femtoliter) is the metric unit of volume equal to 10 to the power of -15 litre, or one quindecillionth (European) or one quadrillionth (American) litre. It is abbreviated fL or fl." I guess that it is kind of like a "nanosplatter", but with a less memorable name. I am now taken with the new and wonderful word "quindecillionth". Should not the federal government be thinking in these numerical terms rather than its opposite as far as the economy is concerned? But I digress...

The Mayo Clinic suggests that there are a number of reasons why a person may have contracted the condition known as macrocytosis. I will comment discretely as I present their findings.

1. Vitamin B-12 deficiency (I have no idea where I am here. I have enough trouble curtailing vitamin C and increasing my vitamin D. Besides, any vitamin having more than five varieties is too hard to keep track of.)

2. Folate deficiency (I suffer this only in the autumn when all of my leaves fall off.)

3. Liver diseases ("Doc Holliday" informs me that if my liver were any healthier I would be stalked by Hannibal Lector)

4. Alcoholism (This could have been a problem in my youth, but I switched to Vanilla Wafers made with artificial vanilla when I was 15).

5. A side effect of chemo-therapy drugs (I, thankfully, do not have to endure this, except in Trillium's van where there is a Cinnamon Air Freshener hanging from the rear-view mirror).

6. Increased blood cell regeneration (A-hah! This comes with blood-loss, whether deliberate or accidental; the bone marrow can't seem to differentiate between the two.)

The boys at the Salad-dressing Clinic have concluded that macrocytosis is not a disease, that it has no symptoms, and there is no known treatment. They will, however, take your money for.... um.... any reason at all. Isn't this fun! Now on to microcytosis!

Micro-psychosis... er .... micro-cytosis is a condition which usually shows up if you have one of the following:

1.Iron deficiency anemia (This... is.... not... my... problem;... clank!)

2. Sideroblastic anemia (I've seen this word before, somewhere, but concluded that I did not fit the profile... at least I don't think I did.)

3. lead poisoning (More heavy metals! The only lead poisoning that I can recall took place in seventh grade when Juanita Barcelona stabbed me in the back of my hand with her pencil. I probably had that coming.)

4. Peridoxine deficiency (This is the sweet name for vitamin B-6. I am no more comfortable with this than I was with vitamin B-12; B-12 is also called Cyanocobalamin for those of you with insatiable linguistic curiosity.)

Now the second iron-depleting procedure that I had this week was a hair cut. As the lovely girl from Richfield was going about her business, she said over and over "Man, you sure have a lot of hair!" I wondered if she meant that in the context of "... for a guy who is five times older than I am!". She wore out three pairs of scissors in the process. As I was leaving, the sweet young thing suggested "Perhaps, Dr. Beeblebrox, you should cut down on your B vitamins, particularly B-essemer." I looked that one up too. Bessemer vitamins are designed to reduce the amount of carbon in pig iron in order to make a higher quality steel. Apparently my follicles are taking over where Geneva Steel left off.

National Casting of Aspersions Week

2009-01-24T07:45:00.000-08:00

This proved to be a tough week for me and I thought that a day-by-day recounting would be useful.

You remember (or not) that I had my phlebotomy a couple of weeks ago after a two-month respite from poking or prodding of any kind. The fact that I did not have a blood-letting during December disturbed me somewhat (or not) and I was left with a lot of time on my hands when I thought very little of anything else 'ceptin' eatin', which I did a lot of. Along with consuming a vast amount of iron-bearing foods, I compounded the problem by chasing every molecule down with phenomenal amounts of sugar and vitamin C, which without question facilitated absorption of any kind of iron floating about in the air. I began to fear for my life.

I decided last week, during our stay in St. George, Utah, that I would have my ferritin check on Monday the 19th. Now before anyone accuses me of a gross insensitivity, I have to say that since my retirement everyday is a holiday. I don't keep track of these sorts of things as a rule, because as a rule these national days of pause have little or no impact on my daily life. Trillium's birthday does and our anniversary does, but most everything else is just another day in paradise. When I called to make an appointment for my 30-second mini-extraction, no one answered at the clinic. "What is with these people?" I said into the mouthpiece of the phone. "Is everybody on vacation?" It was then that I looked at the calendar. I was so chagrined at not acknowledging Civil Rights Day, as it is called here in Utah, that when Friday came I did not take the trash out to the curb, expecting that Waste Management would come on Saturday, which is their practice when a holiday falls mid-week. Thursday night, after all of the evening events were over, Trillium said, "Aren't you going to take the trash out?"

I smugly replied "They won't come tomorrow; Monday was a national holiday."

"You better take it out; my calendar says that tomorrow is the big day, and it is a two-bucket day." I did so, in the rain, grumbling all the while about the farce that recycling is in our valley. I have a sneaking suspicion that even though two separate trucks come on Friday mornings, one each for the black and blue cans, they end up taking the refuse that we have diligently segregated to the same place for burial. Trillium is never wrong, however, and the trucks rolled about on their appointed rounds at their usual hour. Horror of horrors! Waste Management does not observe Martin Luther King Day!

Tuesday Joe Biden was sworn in as the 47th Vice-President of the United States, the man who assured me that paying more taxes was patriotic. I celebrated the occasion by spending an enormous amount of Medicare dollars by having my ferritin level checked. Now I have to decide whether I am un-American or simply a tax-and-spend Republican.

Tuesday I called my doctor's office early with the usual phone routine, and set up an appointment to have my blood drawn for the ferritin check shortly before the time that we were going to visit T-ma at the Shire. About 1:20, Trillium and I made our way to the University Health Care Center on University Parkway. For those of you who don't know, UHCC is named such because of the University of Utah, of which it is a part. University Parkway is named for BYU of which I am a part (an alumnus twice over, you know). I am always in a state of confliction when I go to visit with "Doc Holiday" who went to medical school at the University of Cincinnati (another outfit in dressed in red). Anyway.... "She-Who-Shall-Remain-Nameless" (SWSRN for short, pronounced "Shwooshrun") showed up at the front desk shortly after I checked in at 1:30 and waited there apparently doing nothing for over ten minutes while I cooled my heels beneath the television set carrying the broadcast of the Inauguration of the new President. I might have forgiven her if she had been watching the history-making event, but she simply stood at the far side of the desk with a blank look on her face. At 1:45 she invited me into her lab as if she had just noticed me, did her 30-second task and wished me well. She did, however, complement me on my veins. Was this sweet observation supposed to ameliorate the the fifteen minutes of heel-cooling, a rhetorical symbolism without substance? What a day!

On Wednesday, Tom Hanks, an actor whose work I have admired, declared that I was "un-American" simply because I hold political views that differ from his. This he did with a personal phone call. The phone rang. "Yes?" I replied.

"Zaphod! This is Tom. You're un-American and I wanted you to be the first to know that I am in the process of calling up all thirteen million of the rest of your people to let you know how I feel."

"Tom," I said, "How much is this going to cost you? Thirty or forty million dollars? Personal phone calls to thirteen million people world wide is going to be a little pricey. Why don't you just hold a press conference and tell us all off at once?" You all know the rest of the story.

I waited all day Thursday for "Doc Holliday" to call me with the results of my ferritin check. No joy! When the mail came yesterday there was a letter to me from the good doctor informing me that my ferritin level was at 345, some 52 points lower than the last level in November. To date I have lost almost 500 points of ferritin, this since August, about 100 points per phlebotomy. I have wondered what would have happened if I had had blood drawn in December and January. Prior to this last measurement I had dropped on average about 120 point per phlebotomy. Is is possible that I could have been as low as 160 by now if I had given it up twice instead of once? I am determined that I am going to give blood two more times, once in February and another in March, before my semi-annual visit with "Doc Holliday" in April. He will probably excoriate me for taking my life into my own hands, but I need to have good ratings on the internet, especially at "Trillium.com" and "Reallyaggressivesister.org".

Nothing else happened on Friday, the product of a four-day work week. Trillium and I went out to Chuck-A-Rama for dinner. Salads of all kinds, Cajun White Fish, a batch of batter-fried shrimp, and cobbler for desert. Oh, happy iron-free day!

Pig Iron, Part Deux

2009-01-09T05:46:00.000-08:00

Sorry.....

During that last posting, the "wheatdog" was doing all of the talking.

Getting back to the iron in hotdogs, I have to say that the whole process of figuring out an appropriate amount of iron intake for a hemochromatosis patient is obfuscated by the fact that the USDA makes it almost impossible to understand their system. For example: the makers of Ballpark Hotdogs testify that one of their beef franks will provide a person with 4% of his (slightly less for her) daily requirement for iron. The United States Department of Agriculture says that a normal person needs about 10 milligrams (.010 grams) of iron to make it through a normal day. If you are an abnormal person or are having an abnormal day, you are on your own, mathematically speaking. Assuming normality, Ballpark is suggesting that if you wish to have all of your iron come from their wienies, you would have to eat 25 of them. Wow! As much as I love "wheatdogs", I can't hammer down a whole loaf bread in a day. Maybe there is more going on here than meets the eye.

Inasmuch as we hemochromatosis patients absorb three times as much iron from the food that we consume, should we conclude that one hotdog eaten by myself would provide 12% of my daily requirement for iron? That seems reasonable. Yet I have to ask myself, again, how much total iron is there in a hotdog? Resorting again to the math of the matter, if 4% represents a tenth of the total amount of iron in a hotdog (remember, 4% is the promised nutritional value, and normal people only digest 10% of the total available), then the total amount of iron that could be wrung from a Ballpark frank is 40% of the USDA's recommendation. The USDA says that 10 milligrams (.010 grams) is all that you need each day. If my mad math skills have not failed me, each Ballpark beef frank has a total of .004 grams of iron held within its plump little self. Now, hold on to your bootstraps! A Ballpark beef frank weighs 56 grams. What in the world constitutes the other 55.996 grams of material in that wienie? Don't think about this conundrum too long; "Calorie Count" gives Ballpark beef franks a nutritional grade of "F" and those guys have no clue about hemochromatosis. They also apparently have no clue about what constitutes a great tasting hotdog. The fact of the matter is, no matter what else is in a Ballpark beef frank, 53.5678 grams of it is pure "yummy". What I find interesting is that Trillium has intuitively selected the best possible venue for my personal addiction to "wheatdogs", and this long before "Doc Holliday" and I had our first set-to.

Here are Consumer Reports top six hotdogs, as of July 2007:

1. Hebrew National Kosher Beef Franks (weighs 49 grams and has 50% more iron than Ballpark; I have eaten loads of these behind Trillium's back))
2. Nathan's Famous Skinless Beef Franks (with roll, weighs 100 grams and has half of the iron of a Ballpark wienie; when is the next train to Coney Island?)
3. Boar's Head Skinless Beef Franks (weighs 45 grams and has the same iron as Ballpark; never heard of them, but can you get beef from a boar?)
4. Hebrew National Kosher Reduced-Fat Beef Franks (weighs 49 grams and has the same iron as Ballpark; non-fat sounds like you're concerned about your health. You can eat three of these in place of one Ballpark.)
5. Boar's Head Lite Skinless Beef Franks (weighs 45 grams and has the same iron as Ballpark; still suspecting the boar's head!)
6. Ball Park Beef Franks (weighs 56 grams and is the industry standard; 4% of USDA suggested iron intake)

Earlier in our married life, Trillium and I lived in Garden Grove, California. For poverty purposes we used to shop at a grocery store in Santa Ana called McCoy's. Everything was cheap! One day while shopping I cruised by the meat department and found hotdogs on sale for $.10 a pound. I had never seen them that cheap before, even at McCoy's. I began emptying the freezer case into my cart. Trillium came by with another cart and said, "Whatcha doin'?" She always uses that accent when I am doing something suspect.

"I'm a-pickin' up food!" I always use my Mortimer Snerd accent when I sense that I have been caught doing something stupid.

"Whatcha got?"

"Hottendoggies, yup, yup yup!"

"Whats inem?"

I looked at the "nutritional facts" label. "Beef lips and pork snouts," I stammered, somewhat aghast.

She gave me that look she always gives me on such occasions and said sweetly, "Too much cheap iron. Put them back. You'll thank me later".

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Pig Iron

2009-01-08T18:16:00.000-08:00

I went to the Infusion Center a couple of days ago and gave my bi-monthly pint. Prior to doing so, I called up the International Red Cross to see how their movement toward allowing hemochromatosis patients to give blood for public use. For those of you who have been following my adventures with this unexpectedly unrare disorder, I had called them once before about this matter because I thought that $107.00 per pop was just a little too much to pay in order to share my lovely B+ blood with the land fill. I called the local office; the Donor Acceptability Department. I was greeted by a somewhat familiar voice.

"Hello, Mr. Beeblebrox. What may I do for you?"

"How did you know it was me?" I asked.

"Caller I.D.. I find it is a lot more personal if I greet our patrons by their names. Is there something I can do for you."

"I was hoping that I could do something for you. I am wondering if you have changed your policy on the donation of iron-overloaded blood. I understood that the policy was supposed to change in this region after the first of the year."

"Oh! I don't know. This is just the Donor Acceptability Department. I will have to put you in touch with the Donor Acceptability Department in Boise, Idaho. Can you hold?"

Before I could ask the obvious question, I was put on hold. A few seconds later, another voice (I say another voice, but it sounded surprisingly the same as the one that I had just been speaking with, whom I thought hailed from Provo, Utah) picked up the line and sweetly said,"Hello, Mr. Beeblebrox. What may I do for you?"

I replied: "I was hoping that I could do something for you. I am wondering if you have changed your policy on the donation of iron-overloaded blood. I understood that the policy was supposed to change in this region after the first of the year." I have to do these repetitions frequently as I move up the information ladder. Someday I am doing to figure out a way to scissors-and-paste my voice.

"Hmmmm! I don't know. Let me check with my supervisor. Can you hold?"

At what point does anyone know anything about who qualifies as an acceptable donor of blood? Eventually, the girl came back on line. "Well, Zaphod (I began to wonder if I had called them more than once), it appears that the policy has not changed. You will still have to go to the Infusion Center to do your duty to yourself and your sister. Bye-bye now."

Somewhat dazed at the exchange, I found the number of the Infusion Center and asked to set up an appointment. The person at the other end of the line said, "Hello, Mr. Beeblebrox. What may I do for you?" I was certain that this was the third time I had spoken to the same person.

"I would like to come down as soon as possible and have a phlebotomy. I have a standing order from my doctor."

"Yes, yes, we know, but we are really busy this morning. There have been a goodly number of people who have fallen off the wagon over the holidays. Could you come sometime after 2:00 this afternoon?"

I said that I could and would. As it turned out, Trillium and I went up to see T-ma about 1:00 or so to see how she was getting along with the staff, and how many times she had hit any of the therapists there with it. All of this progressed, the drive to and fro, from home to The Shire, to the Infusion Center, and back home in one of the worst snow storms in Utah history. Our stay at The Shire was short, but we had time to play one game of Phase 10 before moseying off to Provo. I am a little dim about who won. I think that T-ma did; by one card. I faded fast once she began swinging her cane at me. (Now no hasty chastisement here; you all know that this scene was fabricated for artistic effect. My mother-in-law and I get along just fine.)

At the Infusion Center, I signed in once again in some detail. If one does not show up at their place more frequently than once a month, then all of the paperwork has to be done all over again. I was taken to a cubical, very similar to all of the others in which I had been previously ensconced. While I was sitting there waiting for someone to deflate me, a very large man raced by, his hand over his face, and blood streaming down his arm. I was naturally curious. While I waited there, the same man passed by the front of my cubical several more times in the same attitude and condition. When my paperwork arrived from Registration, Nurse Chappell flounced in and began preparing me for my blood-letting. I took the opportunity to ask Majel the burning question. "Who is the fellow with the bloody nose?"

"Him? Oh, just another phlebotomy guy. I'm not sure whether he asked for a second can of root beer [this she said looking at me with a knowing eye] or whether they just had trouble finding a good enough vein in his arm to draw from."

I am not vain about my veins, but I was happy that they seemed to be cooperating that afternoon. I can't help but wonder though, how long it would take to give a pint of blood through one's nose. I went went home rejoicing in the condition of my cardio-vascular system, even though the hole in my right arm was obscenely large.

Now in another vein.

I have tried to be at least a little bit conservative in my eating habits, but there appears to be one thing that I cannot seem to do without. At some point in my childhood, I happened upon a really hot hotdog and finding no other ready condiment, merely put butter on a piece of bread and wrapped the slice around the dog. It is sort of like a "corndog", but it is more like a "wheatdog" without the stick. I love these things. I can eat them for breakfast, lunch, or dinner and sense no shame whatsoever. I just had one a few minutes ago, even though Trillium fixed a lovely (and supremely healthy) meal for dinner. It is an addiction.

How much life-threatening, liver-destroying, pancreas-eroding, brain-frying, heart-stopping iron is there in a "wheatdog"? Who cares?
.
.
.
.
(I need an attitude adjustment here!)

Lot's Soup

2008-12-27T07:50:00.000-08:00

I have decided that the slings and arrows of life aimed at other people can have a direct effect on my own. Several weeks ago, T-ma fell in her room upstairs, breaking her hip, the femur, just below the ball joint. The medical team suggested that there were three possibilities: first, they could glue and staple the bone back together and wait six months for the bone to mend; second, they could perform a hip replacement, after which T-ma could be up and about within 48 hours; or third, they could stick her out in a nearby snowbank and let nature take its course. I love it when physicians make the choices that they want so clear to the people they are talking to. There is a kind of mental and emotional manipulation going on here that suits these fellows to a tee (or tea, depending on which side of the pond you are from). T-ma thought the snowbank sounded fine; Trillium suggested that the hip replacement had appeal; and I pretended to be mute.

Visiting people in the hospital has almost always given me the willies. I don't like the places in general, and the outfit wherein the operation on T-ma was performed didn't do much for me either. I am not convinced that hospitals are anything more than a vast repository of microbes and viruses waiting to descend upon and invade the bodies of anyone coming for services or those who are visiting those who have already been served. I mentally (and quite possibly physically) cringe every time I pass through the doors of a hospital.

After a few days of recovery, T-ma was sent off to The Shire, a local rehabilitation center where she could receive physical therapy on a daily basis, so that she could one day return to the Mount Kilimanjaro that is our house (we have nothing but stairs). Medicare volunteered to pay for twenty days in The Shire, figuring that in that time she would be fully healed. During the twenty calendar days that she has been there, six of them were weekends, meaning that she received no therapy on those days. This left 14 days of therapy in order to bring about total recovery. In the beginning there seemed to be some confusion as to whether or not there should be any stair-practice, a curious development inasmuch as that particular skill is absolutely vital on Mount Kilimanjaro. Eventually the doctors said that stair therapy should be part of the mix. One attempt at walking the stairs was made; great protestations were heard; and stair therapy became passe. One day I took the opportunity (as a good son-in-law) to chat with Tiny Tim, The Shire therapist. I found him in the tulip garden attempting to tip-toe around answering my questions directly.

"Well, she complained about about the stairs. There were too many of them [six]. There were just as many going up as there were going down [again six]. And when I suggested that she had to do this twice a day, she hit me with her walker."

"Well, Tiny Tim, she is 86..."

"At least that explains why she hit me with the walker that many times. Do you think she was trying to make a point?"

"No doubt." I then suggested that she might be ready to try again. She had said as much to me a few minutes before. Tiny Tim visibly winced, but promised that he would attempt another session with her that involved (gasp!) the The Shire Stairs. I don't think he has, as yet, broached the subject directly.

Other than the fact that I have usually attended Trillium in her daily jaunts to the hospital and The Shire, I have been affected in another way. For a couple of weeks we made it our practice to visit T-ma in the late afternoon, about four or so. Leaving The Shire about five-thirty meant that we would have to race home and quickly throw a meal together (when I say "we" I really mean "she"). I decided that I should be gallant and offer to take us out to eat somewhere. Trillium agreed. We have now visited every fast-food slinging establishment in the valley, along with a few other places that we had long ago dismissed as being the poster children for the County Health Department. I cannot imagine that this has been good for my ferritin count. I am actually beginning to lose the svelte lines of my youthful 66 year-old well-toned body and am starting to look like a spokesman for a Michelin Tire Commercial.

Christmas day we went up to The Shire to visit T-ma. We went around noon since none of our children could pull themselves away from their happy hearths to visit the tropical depression at Mount Kilimanjaro (that is a little unfair, since most of them showed up in the afternoon, notwithstanding the blizzard going on in Utah). We arrived just at lunch time as it turned out. Before we went into the dining room, T-ma regaled us with her adventures with The Shire cuisine during the previous four weeks. From her tone, I would have thought that the nutritionist (who shall remain Nameless) would be sporting about 86 lumps of one sort or another. One of the nurses said that since it was a light day, many of the inmates having been furloughed for Christmas, we could eat lunch with T-ma. I thought to myself, "Well, here we will find out the truth of the matter. I will know for myself, just how petulant my mother-in-law really is".

The main course was a chicken Caesar salad, the chicken was hot and redolent with lemon-pepper seasoning. I thought it a little strong to my taste and thought to chase it down with a glass of red punch that was on the table.... (eeeek!) .... (gaaasp!) ..... (I am at a loss for words). I believe that that concoction destroyed 9,345,294,567 of my brain cells in about 2.576 nano-seconds. I switched to water. The second course arrived shortly thereafter. Soup, a kind of green sludge with assorted colorful flakes floating about in it. A lady in back of me was served before we were and immediately broke in to a tearful fit about the soup, that it burned her mouth, that she needed baby food, and a dozen other such exclamations.

"She's such a whiner," T-ma said. "All day and all night. You'd think she was lying in a snowbank somewhere." About that same moment, our soup arrived. "Oh, my heck!" shouted T-ma as she took a spoonful, "This stuff is battery acid laced with salt. Here Zaphod; you can shovel this down," she said as she pushed the bowl in my direction.

"I have my own, T-ma. Thank you very much anyway," I sweetly replied, pushing the bowl back in her direction. I then demurely sipped my first spoonful from my own bowl and nearly gagged. I almost shouted out, "Oh, my heck! This stuff is battery acid laced with salt," but I did not care to validate my mother-in-law's assessment of the products of The Shire's lumpy chef. In order to be as supportive of the healing process as I possibly could, I consumed the entire bowl of soup with a bit of flourish, hoping that the salt would somehow ameliorate the torrent of iron consumption that had been going on in my life since T-ma had been incarcerated. I could not think of any other reason why I should slurp it down.

Salt causes iron to erode away. That is why we go to the car wash frequently here in Orem. It only seems natural that consumption of vast amounts of salt would cause a reduction of ferritin levels. After spending seconds on the internet, Googling the connection between hemochromatosis and high-sodium diets, I found nothing conclusive that would verify my hypothesis. There appears to be an open field here, one that suggests that someone with an entrepreneurial spirit could become independently wealthy in a few short weeks if they could only make that scientific connection between salt and iron. My ambitions are somewhat more modest. I asked the chef for the recipe for the soup. I have copyrighted that recipe as "Lot's Soup"; that's the ticket! When the break-through comes, I will be ready with the cure.

By the bye. When I have some sort of an injury or illness that might require a stay in the hospital or a rehab center, just stuff me in a snowbank somewhere. Everyone will be happier for it.

PGOUS

2008-12-13T07:59:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago, I walked on to the gang-plank of the "Flying Dutchman" and with a hardy crew of rambunctious teenagers, joined the "Krrrrakin" and "Calypso" in a foray to Salt Lake City to see the lights on Temple Square. For the record, my friend and counselor Gerry and I spent most of our time sitting in a nice warm visitors' center while everyone else enjoyed the season in the cold outside. Other than the good conversation, this trip was memorable for two reasons.

First, this is an annual trip that we make to Crown Burger, thinly veiled by the two-block hike to Temple Square. It is hard to imagine any December passing without an ingestion of a Crown Burger Combo of some kind. It is always fun to see the consternation of the servers when thirty of us troop through the doors. The "Crown Burger" is a regular, Whopper-sized, sandwich, but loaded with pastrami on top of the patty. The heme iron count is enormous. I could hear my arteries hardening with every bite. The french fries are good, the drinks are great, and the company is fabulous. I sat with Marja the Flying Finn and regaled her with the prospect of her husband having to do what I have been doing for the past five years. She took it quite well, under the circumstances. The problem with this little tradition is that the Infusion Center is going to be crowded when I go in next month.

Second, on the way down (or back, I can't remember), Calypso mentioned that she had been reading this blog of mine; I gave her the URL last Sunday. I asked her if she enjoyed it. She said that she laughed out loud on several occasions. At some point she became quite serious.

"Ju kno, Zaphid, dis flax zeed ol, cout be a-gibbin' ju de proztate canker. Zome peoble zay, 'Jes' oderz zay 'No'. De whol flax zeed, she be okay. Fizh ol, dat be fine. Flax ol, dat be a-gibbin' ju a glant de size of... oh I don' kno... de moon."

Oh, goody! The moon, which was gibbous at that very moment, heading towards full, 14% bigger than it has been all year, was shining down on us all. My skeleton was beginning to shine through. An ominous portent, I tell you. I decided that flax seed oil needed a little more exploration before I put another drop of the stuff between my lips.

My reason for taking flax seed oil had to do with my blood pressure. The oil apparently tends to make my blood vessels all silky and shiny, kind of like what a good shampoo does to your hair. The blood is really happy to flow through such slicked up tubes and feels a lot less anxious about going from one organ to another. Hence, lower pressure. When I got home I asked Trillium about the flax seed oil and prostate cancer connection. She said, "Oh yes, that's true, but only in rats."

Rats? As it turns out, this had been discovered by William Goldman many years ago. Apparently, little tiny rats living in Uruguay happened upon an enormous field of flax, which they then devoured without hesitancy. This ingestion caused their prostate glands to grow to the size of a Volkswagen. What the field studies forgot to communicate was that the rats themselves grew to be the size of a 747, without the wings. The little charmers weighed about forty tons, and a fifty-foot rat trap was used to catch them (there is, however, absolutely no explanation as to who actually built these traps). If you don't believe me, Google it yourself. The Rats Of Unusual Size lived in a swamp just outside of Montevideo, noted for its flatulence (the swamp, not the city). Wesley and Buttercup did not spend their honeymoon there (neither the city nor the swamp).

I decided, therefore, that since I have enough trouble getting behind the wheel of the Mustang as it is, that I would, for the time being, reduce the amount of flax seed oil that I am consuming on a daily basis. I am down to one cockroach-sized tablet now.

Calypso suggested that I could take fish oil instead of flax seed oil, and that would work just as well as the flax seed oil. Trillium agreed. My problem is that when I eat fish of any kind, except halibut, the ghost of that fish haunts me for days, reminding me how fishy the fish was. When I made my little complaint about the hourly post-it notes my stomach is wont to send me, Calypso said, "Der iz a zort of fizh ol dat ju kan et like candiez. It iz Finnizh Fizh ol. Talk to de Marja. She kno'z watz wat."

When I finish the bottle of flax seed oil that I presently have, I will go to the fish oil that tastes like candy. Hopefully by then I will not have a PGOUS.

A Mile-stone... er... An Iron-stone

2008-12-03T18:10:00.000-08:00

You will recall that I had a phlebotomy a couple of weeks ago, and very little to do afterwards until last Tuesday (yesterday) when I went in to see "She-Who-Shall-Remain-Nameless" to have blood drawn for the ferritin check. Other than spending fifteen minutes reading "wrong-headedness" in print (Time Magazine), the blood letting was uneventful. I have to say that "Nameless" managed for the second time in a row not to cause me any alarm whatsoever when she let the needle fly. I did not feel a thing.

Today, before going up to the hospital to visit T-ma (a broken hip from a fall last Sunday; a hip-replacement yesterday), I received a phone call from "Doc Holliday" informing me that my ferritin count had dropped to 392, well within the normal range. He suggested that I wait until January before I have another pint drawn, and two weeks after that before I have my ferritin level checked again. Gee, and I was well on my way to being fear-free of the needle game. I was actually starting to look forward to these pleasant little outings.

What this means, of course, is that I will have even less material to draw upon when I am writing my entries to this blog. What an insufferable situation. I had just gotten used to the idea that I would only have to "Google" myself some information about once every other week. Now, during the month of December, I am going to have to do something bizarre every week without the benefit of my cast of characters. This does not bode well for the entertainment value of my writing. The cynics are saying, "Well, we are not certain there was much in any event". Point taken.

All that can be said that this point is that I am certain that my sister will be glad to hear that her brother's organs are safe from all mortal danger, at least from the eight-pound Cafe Rio Steak Burrito that I had for lunch today. I am certain that that particular brand of cuisine will probably require an extra visit to the "Infusion Center" come January.

My readership may be interested to know how it feels to be normal. I haven't a clue. Hemochromatosis is only the tip of the abnormality iceberg that is your correspondent. I am happy, however, that I have gone through this process, that there is some truth to be learned and there are effective ways of dealing with medical problems.

What to do now that my entries will no longer be as informative and more widely spaced? Well there is my other blog "Dancing on the Edge" which is a disease that everyone can contract and bemoan together.

Non Ferritous Sequitur

2008-11-29T09:14:00.000-08:00

I have been experiencing a dry spell of sorts. I am between phlebotomies and am two or three days away from another blood withdrawal to check my ferritin count, and thus a week away from having any kind of a report from “Doc Holliday”. I thought, “Well, maybe it is time to find out a few more things. Maybe it is Google-time at the Beeblebrox household”. So this morning I went on line to find out just how much iron I am losing per day through my skin, my hair, and my fingernails. The answer is simple.

According to those who actually spent time investigating this sort of medical information for a living, normal human beings shed about one milligram of iron per day. I wondered if a person with serious iron-overloading actually sheds more. It seems reasonable that it would be so. A German outfit located in Germany (that seems right), says that normal people have about 65 (+ or – 25) mu-mols of iron for every 100 grams of dry weight skin. I have a question. Where did these German scientists get 100 grams of dry weight human skin? Think of this. A normal human being sheds his or her skin (about 22 square feet) every other day, at a rate of 7 million skin flakes per minute. I am told that if you gathered up all of the skin flakes shed in a week from every person on the earth you would have a pile of dead cells three stories high. Apparently there is no want of experimental materials.

Given that there are plenty of dead skin cells to work with, the little German project at least is plausible. The report goes on to say, however, that those people with hemochromatosis have significantly more iron in their skin. Now this seems intuitively correct, but has this been scientifically proven? I mean, when our little Herr Professor Doctors were ferreting about in their thirty foot pile of dead skin cells, how did they know which ones belonged to the iron overloaded class? Did they use magnets (my favorite technique)? Did they wait for the 1 cell in 250 to migrate toward the north? What? How? This is a puzzling conclusion and one that requires further research. Don’t expect any results any time soon.

Now, is this the sort of stuff that inspires my family or anyone else to rise up and take notice of my carefully crafted prose? No! It is what follows, the stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with my affliction, except in the most ancillary of ways. While I was trying to find out how much the entire skin of a normal human being weighs (9 to 10 pounds, but I don’t think that is dry weight), I happened upon a website called “The Analyst”, a digital naturopathic “.com” that was filled with all sorts of informative and really repulsive data. The article on Hemochromatosis (Iron Overloading) seemed to be fairly accurate. I recommend it.

http://www.digitalnaturopath.com/cond/C517593.html

What I found particularly interesting, however, ensconced between the elaborate charts and the rather erudite Glossary, was this little story.

When Jacob was finally given an exit visa by the Russians and allowed to immigrate to Israel, he was told he could only take what he could put into one suitcase. At Moscow airport, he was stopped by customs and an official shouted, "Open your case at once."

Jacob did what he was told. The official searched through his case and pulled out something wrapped in newspaper. He unwrapped it and saw it was a bust of Stalin.

"What is that?" he shouted at Jacob.

Jacob replied, "You shouldn't ask 'What is that?' - you should ask 'Who is that?' That is our glorious leader Stalin. I'm taking it to remind me of the wonderful things he did for me and the marvellous life that I am leaving behind."

The official sneered. "I always knew you Jews were mad. Go, and take the bust with you."

When Jacob arrived at Ben Gurion airport, a customs officer said, "Shalom, welcome to Israel, open your case, please!"

Jacob's case was once again searched and not surprisingly the bust was found. "What is that?” asked the officer.

Jacob replied, "You shouldn't ask 'What is that?' - you should ask 'Who is that?' That is Stalin the rat. I want to spit on it every day to remind me of all the suffering and misery he caused me."

The official laughed, "I always knew you Russians were mad. Go, and take the bust with you."

When Jacob arrived at his new home, his young nephew watched him as he unpacked. Jacob carefully unwrapped the bust of Stalin and put it on the table. "Who is that?" asked his nephew.

Jacob replied, "You shouldn't ask 'Who is that?' - you should ask 'What is that?' That is five kilos of gold."

Now that is my kind of blog.

Ken Youse Hold .... on to Your Wallet?

2008-11-21T16:37:00.000-08:00

Given the nature of my little affliction, there is bound to be some repetition in the events recorded in this blog. I have attempted to keep things interesting, perhaps somewhat entertaining, as the weeks and months have rolled along. I have contemplated how in the world I was going to obtain enough material to make a weekly entry. How many times can I go to the Infusion Center to have a pint taken before the rhetorical well runs dry? It's hard to say. Thus far, the boys and girls over there have been quite accommodating, providing me with vast amounts of anecdotal tidbits with which to regale my readers. How many times can I take "Doc Holliday's" name in vain before the "Cease and Desist" order arrives at my front door? Its hard to say. I have been circumspect, choosing to rename everyone cleverly (or, as it is in one person's case, I have chosen to name her "Nameless", and so she shall remain).

In terms of my experiences with the staff at the three major major institutions with which I have to deal, these, too, have proven to be a rich source of grist for my verbal mill. I have hopes that I can continue on without droning excessively about my condition. In the present moment, however, I do need to follow up just a bit on an item that was left hanging a posting or so ago. That this has to do with the staff of two of the three major institutions with which I usually deal is merely coincidental. What follows below has only a faint resemblance to what has gone on before, but I suspect that it does so because of the smoke and mirrors in operation by the various parties concerned.

You will recall (if you can't, there is a place where you can go to review) that I had been to the Infusion Center twice before they finally billed DMBA and Medicare for the cost of hauling my blood out of me, and then out of the door. DMBA, however, was not as forthcoming with the payments as the Infusion Center had hoped, leaving then with the indelicate option of having to deal with me directly about the $70.22 shortfall. Before they actually sent me the bill, however, they thought to try alternative methods of recouping their losses. There was at least one attempt to make the whole process a more lucrative enterprise, but that ended in failure when the town fathers of Spanish Fork discovered that there were clandestine operatives salting an old, played-out, iron mine near Thistle, with my blood. They probably would have gotten away with it had not the rats in the mine begun to hum James Taylor songs in the middle of the night.

When the notice to "pay or else" arrived in the mail from the Infusion Center, you will remember that I called DMBA to find out exactly why I was having to pay $35.11 each time I had my blood taken, inasmuch as it was in their financial best interests to have it done. My contact at that time was a young man who introduced himself as "Gernrnnantily". After explaining what I thought was an exorbitant co-pay for the procedure, the fellow sent me off into the netherworlds of "Will You Hold Please" while he consorted with his supervisor. When he returned, he apologized for some sort of mal-function that had taken place in the "data entry palace" of the mystical land of DMBA. I asked him what I should expect. He said, "In no time at all your bill with the Infusion Center will be satisfactorily dealt with. These topographical errors are easy to resolve." Not only did I worry about the nature of the "topographical errors", but also what "in no time at all" actually meant.

Being the trusting, non-cynical soul that I am, I let the whole thing pass, anticipating that I would never have to have a verbal exchange with Big G again. This past week, however, I learned for myself once again that the truth of Lily Tomlin's aphorism, "No matter how cynical you become, it is never enough", had not become passe. Wednesday, I received a dunning notice from the Patient Services Department of the hospital suggesting that if I did not pay the $70.22 due them, I might find additional reasons to take advantage of Medicare's services, that my personal topography might have to be rearranged by someone with a very large magnet (the threat was specifically aimed at my medical condition; think of that!). I decided that my best course of action was to call DMBA again and find out what was up.

A new fellow, "Firmenansy", answered the phone. I began to explain all that I had originally communicated to "Gernrnnantily" about the billing. After a minute or two of listening to my prattle, he asked me if I could hold; he needed to talk with his supervisor. I told him I would wait. I do not know whether the length of time on hold is indicative of anything at all, but I am beginning to think that it requires some effort to come up with a fabricated tale that will momentarily satisfy the patient on line. "Firmenansy" was equal to the task.

"Well, Mr. Beeblebrox, the problem here is that the hospital has been billing us using a code that is reserved for "Out-Patient Medical Pfijmleyt" instead of using the code for "Lab Tbnllkonr Kndfdjkoeu". All you have to do is communicate that to your health provider and that should solve any and all topographical problems you may be suffering".

I was beginning to wonder if my time was worth $35.11 a pop, if I had to go through this sort of thing every time I went to the mine-salters. But, having been retired for nearly five years and having little or nothing else to do with my time, I decided that I should continue my efforts, notwithstanding the accumulating billable hours. So, taking "Firmenansy's" recommendation, I proceeded to call the Patient Services Department to provide the appropriate information that would keep everyone happy.

"Wad jouse want?" said a voice that sounded like it would be wielding the afore-mentioned magnet.

"I'm calling about my bill.... "

"Pay up or die!"

"But I don't think that I owe what you say I do. You see... "

"We don haf ta need to 'see' nuttin' here, but the color of yer dough. Pay up or die!"

"But DMBA said that the bill was not submitted corr...... "

"We ain't da billin' d'partmn'. We do da collect'n. But I kin translate ya..."

"What? Translate?"

"No... dats not it... translate..., transpose..., transfigure..., transmogrify.... "

"Transfer?"

"Ya! Dats it! Ken youse hold?"

I held... on for dear life. Finally, the voice of the unflappable "Queenie" (not her real name, but close enough as to make no never-mind) came on the line.

"Yes, Mr. Beeblebrox, what can I do for you?"

I explained everything that I had discussed with Big G, Big F, and BIG-BIG, again trying to make sense out of what had happened in the billing. I commented on the various billing codes and what DMBA had said about them. I then asked if there was anything she could do for me as far as the Patient Services Department was concerned.

"Oh yes. I am just now taking that account away from BIG-BIG. You won't be hearing from him again unless you say something unflattering about me in your next blog." (Note that I have been the quintessence of decorum in this matter.) She continued, "You wouldn't mind if I had a chat with DMBA myself, just to be sure that I have all of the right information?"

"No, not at all. Please do!"

I hung up the phone hoping for the best. About thirty minutes later, I received a return phone call from "Queenie" informing me that I would not have to pay the $35.11 per phlebotomy; that had been a problem with DMBA's computer, a problem that apparently BIG-BIG was able to help them with in some way.

"Now, Zaphod, you owe me one."

"Yes, I do. What do you recommend?"

"Could you cut down on the Barq's a little? Say, down to only eight or nine cans each time you come?"

"I think that I could maybe attempt to try to convince myself that perhaps or maybe that Sprite would do."

"No, Beeblebrox! Eight or nine cans period. And only ten or twelve packages of Lorna Doones. You're killing us over here. Its either that or you are going to have to cough up the $35.11."

It is clear that I am going to have to stop at Carl's Jr. on my way home next month.

The Angel of Mercy

2008-11-17T13:33:00.000-08:00

I made my way down to the Infusion Center last Friday to have another pint of my preternaturally ironized blood drawn ("clink, clank, clunk"). I was greeted by a new crew. I supposed that I had worn Nurse Chappell and her buddies out. The head nurse was wearing a red smock; I had never seen one of these before. I quipped, "What does the red smock mean? Is there some sort of medical significance to the color code around here?"

"It's Friday," the Lady in Red replied. "Didn't you get the memo?"

"No, as a matter of fact I didn't, and apparently no one else in the office did either," I answered, looking around the entire complex at all of the powder blue, pastel green, beige, and other warm earth tones decorating the staff.

"Well, it is Friday and we are having a special celebration that demands that I wear a red smock today."

"Oh! What might that be?"

"Today we have a new Registered Nurse on the floor and she has never drawn blood from a patient before. You are her first."

"And the significance of the red smock?"

"It is difficult getting blood splatters out of our uniforms. I figured since I was to be the tutor of the new RN I ought to be prepared for any eventuality."

"And why am I being graced with a Newbie?" I asked with a quivering lip.

"Because if she screws up and douses the planet with your iron-rich plasma, nobody loses anything. We have to throw the stuff away anyway," she answered with a sweet smile.

"What colored smock is she wearing?"

"She is the one in the powder-blue smock. She is far more optimistic than I am."

So what happened to the pure white dresses that the nurses always used to wear when I was younger? The attire of the Candy-Stripers, I could understand; any errors on their part could be explained as Art Nouveau decorations. When I asked Trillium to marry me 42 years ago, she was dressed in white on the way to work at the hospital in Duluth, Minnesota. LPN's in Minnesota in those days wore white uniforms, and clearly had enormous confidence in their skills. It was the doctors who wore pastels. "Danger, Will Robinson!"

As I was waiting for the troops to show up with the various sized needles, tubes, bags, rubber webbing, the rubber ball, and the mop bucket, I thought about Lord Nelson's great ship of the line, "Victory", and his practice of painting the decks with red paint in order to minimize the psychological effects of having body parts and such scattered everywhere in the heat of battle. This may have made for effective warfare, but it seemed to me that the practice of wearing a red smock to a blood-letting bespeaks of a frame of mind that does not lower the blood pressure of the patient.

Speaking of sea-faring stories and such, one of my favorite songs by James Taylor is called "The Frozen Man". James wrote the song as a whimsical response to a tabloid headline that he had read several years ago about a sailor who had been found in a chunk of ice and whom the medical ghouls were contemplating resuscitating. The lyrics follow:

The Frozen Man

Last thing I remember is the freezing cold
Water reaching up just to swallow me whole
Ice in the rigging and howling wind
Shock to my body as we tumbled in
Then my brothers and the others are lost at sea
I alone am returned to tell thee
Hidden in ice for a century
To walk the world again
Lord have mercy on the frozen man

Next words that were spoken to me
Nurse asked me what my name might be
She was all in white at the foot of my bed
I said angel of mercy I'm alive or am I dead
My name is William James McPhee
I was born in 1843
Raised in Liverpool by the sea
But that ain't who I am
Lord have mercy on the frozen man

It took a lot of money to start my heart
To peg my leg and to buy my eye
The newspapers call me the state of the art
And the children, when they see me, cry

I thought it would be nice just to visit my grave
See what kind of tombstone I might have
I saw my wife and my daughter and it seemed so strange
Both of them dead and gone from extreme old age
See here, when I die make sure I'm gone
Don't leave 'em nothing to work on
You can raise your arm, you can wiggle your hand(unlike myself)
And you can wave goodbye to the frozen man

I know what it means to freeze to death
To lose a little life with every breath
To say goodbye to life on earth
To come around again
Lord have mercy on the frozen man
Lord have mercy on the frozen man

That little song went through my mind as I sat there waiting with Trillium for the The Lady in Red and her cohort, the Girl in Glacier Blue, to show up to do the messy deed. Why wasn't I going to get an "Angel of Mercy," dressed all in white? Even William James McPhee got one of those and he was almost dead. LR and GGB showed up after about 15 minutes full of enthusiasm and thinly veiled anticipation. I could tell that LR had put a fresh coat of ScotchGuard on her smock. What happened next almost defies description.

Never have I been treated as kindly as the "Angel of Mercy" treated me during the next half hour. She freely admitted that this was her first time doing a phlebotomy, but she had been a nurse for more than fifteen years. She explained things cheerfully as she went along, answering my jocular, but nervous questions about what was going on. When it came time for the first injection, the one that would numb the area around the vein that she was going to poke, I made my little half-joke about my phobia about needles, even the 20 gauge one she was about to use.

She said with a wonderful smile, "Oh, this is not that big; you should not even feel the needle going in. It is a needle that we use on infants so as to not hurt them. It's about a 28 or 30 gauge, if not smaller."

"So this is not going to hurt?"

"Yes it is going to sting a bit, but it won't be the needle. It will be the local anesthetic. That juice smarts when it goes in."

No one had ever told me that before; I had always assumed that it was the needle. I began to wonder if some of my other bad moments with needles were of a similar nature.

As she was getting ready to put the 14-gauge "doo-dah" in my arm, I joked about the "Bad Needle Technique" (still abbreviated BNT) that I had received a couple of months back and how I feared for any tuna hooked like that.

"Well," she said, "I haven't ever done a phlebotomy before, but I am really experienced in performing IVs. We shouldn't have any BeNT problems today!"

I waited for the jab, the pinch, the sting, the flickering lights. They never came. Apparently "AoM" put the anesthetic exactly where it was supposed to go, unlike others I could mention. In one fell swoop, "AoM" had swept away about half of my agonies about having my blood drawn.

What a day! I felt so good afterward that I took my first and only Angel of Mercy, together with T-ma, to Carrabbas for dinner. Grilled chicken with garlic mashed potatoes, together with a Caesar salad. Not much digestible iron there, and if there was, I didn't care. I had a friend in the needle business.

Blood-iron Reducing Techniques

2008-11-14T10:44:00.000-08:00

Go to any other web site dedicated to this topic and you will find suggestions far less painful than the ones I am going to articulate here. Most will talk about diet, the sorts of things one should or should not eat, which supplements one should or should not ingest, and what sort of remedial activities actually will cause a loss of ferritin. Most of these are innocuous and generally affect nothing but your whole way of living your life. My modest proposals will be as effective as those proposed by the pantywaists at other websites, but far more memorable.

I personally recommend bike-riding. Barnacle Raff and I do that from time to time and as counter-intuitive as it sounds, free wheeling can bring about a sharp drop in ferritin. The first two forays that Raff and I took involved hardly more than getting into his truck, with our bikes loaded up, and managing to avoid mid-morning traffic on our way to the Riverwood Shopping Center. I have to say that the potential for a cost-effective blood-letting had been on the street both times we made the trip. Unfortunately, Raff's driving skill are prodigious and I neither went through the windshield nor was I ejected from our vehicle at impact. I did over-hear some blood-curdling screams from various parties along the way, but I have not discovered whether curdling one's blood actually affects the ferritin count. The trips from Riverwood to Vivian Park were not exactly fraught with danger, except for the occasional "mountain trail" that Raff likes to take. I saw several boulders with my name potentially written all over them in my own blood; rich iron deposits those.

The trip from the BYU Motion Picture Studios down to Utah Lake, however, was far more promising and productive. Last Thursday (not yesterday, but a week ago), Raff picked me up and because the weather was just a little nippy, he decided that we ought to do a longer, flatter, but warmer excursion. Hence, the Lake Effect. The ride began well, but there were far more travelers on the path than what I was used to. Raff decided that we needed to go about 10:00 so that we would avoid the ice on the path. There was only about a two-mile stretch that had any ice on it. What he had not foreseen, however, was the three-inch pile of leaves that made the path a bit slimy in places. Out of the 14 miles we biked, only 13.99 miles had this problem. Hence, when we came upon the two skateboard enthusiasts with their dogs on their forty-foot leashes pulling them down the trail, the opportunity for ferritin iron reduction was realized.

The usual practice for the patrons of the trail is that those traveling on foot are supposed to hunker to the right while we on bikes pass by them on the left. This practice can vary according to those who are walking and those who are riding and who really thinks that they own the walkway. In other words, anyone traveling along the Provo River Walkway probably ought to anticipate some sort of major injury about every third trip.

The boys on the boards were coming toward us about the same speed we were going towards them. They were engaged in activities other than watching out for Raff and me. I suspect that they were texting each other. In any event, one fellow was on the right side of the path with his dog checking out everything within forty feet on the left. The other fellow was doing the same, but with the orientation reversed. The dogs, of course, had minds of their own (perhaps the four travelers only had one mind between them) and were wandering around to see what the other had discovered. Raff and I shouted at the two boys that we were coming through. It was then that it became clear that the fellows had earbuds inserted as well, listening to KDAVOLA. It was then that things went awry.

Raff slammed on his brakes. As it turned out, he had tried to stop on the .01 mile of the trail that had neither ice nor leaves on it. I, however, was still on frozen tundra. I began to slide and fully expected to hit my 77 year old friend in the back with all of the iron-overloading that still could be measured. I did the only thing that I thought that I could do: I laid my bike down, and did a magnificent "tuck-and-roll" off the path and into the bushes next to the river. On the way down my left knee struck the asphalt. When I got up from my tumble, the two boys and Raff were very solicitous, hoping that I was not seriously injured. When it became apparent that there were no grounds for a personal injury suit, the four-some scampered off to continue their reign of terror elsewhere.

Raff said, "Are you really okay? Do you want to head back?"

"No," I replied, "I think I only scraped my knee a bit." I pulled up my left pant leg and discovered that I had a about a four square inch patch of missing skin on my kneecap that was quietly weeping ferritin.

"Wow! Are you sure you can go on like that!"

"Sure," I replied. "This is all part of my regular iron-overloading therapy. It is facing the Krrrakin that I am worried about." I went to the Krrrakin cave this morning and I was happy to discover that my graceful descent from my bike into the undergrowth had done no damage to my bonal arrangement. So, for those of you looking for new ways to eliminate ferritin from your system, find a place to go bike riding that has lots of sharp protrusions along the trail and a bevy of mindless teenagers multitasking. In no time you should be able to remember exactly what things the other websites have to say on this matter.

If this has been helpful, I may add blogs on cutting fingernails with a lawnmower (I have done this very thing) and giving one's self a haircut with a chain saw (I have come close on several occasions). Remember, it is in the loss of skin, blood, fingernails and hair that the body sheds its iron.

In an hour I go to the Infusion Center to have Nurse Chappell take another pint. I may be less ouchy about the process today.

Iron-Walled

2008-11-12T14:30:00.000-08:00

Trillium and I have been somewhat concerned about the security of our computers. We have a wireless router with Comcast which has been effectively isolated to a few computers in the house and a few specific visiting laptops when they show up in the possession of our relatives whom we trust explicitly. In doing so, I am certain that we have taken away some hangers-on in the neighborhood who could tap into our extremely strong signal. Interestingly enough, even though we have six people on our block who could have regularly picked up on my router signal, Trillium has some problem getting the signal in the "Dungeon" where she has her workroom.

Safely ensconced in our little world of cyberspace, we have not been overly concerned about anyone attempting to hack in either. Both the Comcast box and the router have "firewalls", devices so spectacularly safe that it is supposedly impossible for anyone to secretly invade our personal computers from the outside. Additionally, we have spyware, adware, and virus detectors that are updated at least once a day. We are safe.

I assumed that much the same could be said of our various accounts on the web, like this blogspot, for example. Chris and Trillium, however, have had various encounters with unwelcomed guests on their sites. Chris decided to go "private" which effectively eliminates anyone whom he does not specifically invite. It is a pain to log in every time, but I understand his concern. Trillium, being deeply concerned about pictures and such, decided to put a tracker on her site just to see where her hits were coming from. It has taken her a little while to recognize that some of the odd cities were actually our regulars whom the tracker hasn't quite figured out yet. A little disconcerting at first. Some of the hits floored her, however. Who does she know in Quebec? Who is the guy in Clearwater, Florida, who is checking out my little bouquet of forest flowers? Trillium decided that she might want to go private too and encourage the others on our lists to do so as well.

I have decided not to go private, however. I figured that what I had to say about Hemochromatosis was for the entire world and not just for those who are close to me. Might I get hacked? Probably, but as Trillium pointed out to me this morning, no one is prepared to read everything I have written, much less comment on it. In other words, I am "Iron-walled". My prattlings on my genetic disease put the reader in a comatose state after the first four sentences. I doubt that there will be more than six people who will get to this point in my diatribe today, much less comment on it.

What a gift! To be able to compose such a heavy prose that nothing can break through it! I ruminated in another posting, wondering if my blood were musical. Some of my kindly correspondents thought that I was born with music in my blood. But the truth of the matter is that my blood is in my writing. Mason Williams wrote a song years ago about the poet Dylan Thomas, sung to the tune of "London Bridge is Falling Down":

Dylan Thomas is dead and gone
Dead and gone
Dead and gone
Dylan Thomas is dead and gone
His blood turned to words.

This is me. The Man with the Iron Prose.

Just for the record, I have had visitors from Germany, Australia, and a slough of cities I have never even heard of, much less had contact with. Who are these people? I have no idea, but they probably ought be concerned about the effect of my Iron Prose on their internet connection. Some day all of this stuff is going to reach a critical mass all around the world and "Wham": rust everywhere.

Duty-free Iron

2008-10-31T13:45:00.000-07:00

I went to see the "Krrrakin" this morning at Louis' Bone Emporium. He seems to think that my hip is doing nicely, feeling that he is finally whipping me into shape. As each "snap", "krackle", and "pop" resounded throughout the the "Krrrakin's" cave, I thought about the last fifteen minutes of the "Terminator" that I watched last night. There was a fellow whose bone structure would have given the "Krrrakin" pause. I am assured by the medical profession that my condition does not deposit iron into my bones, nor will it cause my eyes to turn red and glow in the dark. About the time you figure out a possible up-side to a disease, the boys in white take it all away. I have just about finished watching the first season of the "Sarah Conner Chronicles". I am certain that my affliction is not going to make me look like Summer Glau either. More's the pity.

Later on I went to see "Doc Holliday" for my monthly checkup and review of my ferritin count. Before Trillium and I headed off to California, I had a pint ("clank") drawn at the Infusion Center. "Nurse Chappell" was as chipper as ever. I feel like, when I am talking to her, that having the 14-gauge cannon muzzle shoved into my vein is similar to riding on the "teeter-totter" at Paul Ream Park. My guess is that if I were a little more like Arnold's character in last night's movie, our monthly fist-a-cuff's would have more charm about them. "Doc" said that as part of the treatment program that I should continue to do my monthly thing down at the Center. I don't think that I can maintain the witticisms that frequently.

While on vacation in the Pacific, I had the opportunity of partaking of the cuisine offered up by Carnival Cruise Line. It wasn't bad. Dinner time was the best. The servings are based on the European tradition: small, but tasty. I decided on the second night that we ate there, that I would have two of everything. So, I had two appetizers, two entrees, and two desserts. I took consolation that none of this intake was going to trouble my liver, my pancreas, my brain, or my heart. The officers on board kept insisting that everything was duty-free. "Ah!" I thought, "The perfect vacation. I don't have to fret about anything". All diseases and congenital afflictions remained on shore in Long Beach. When we arrived home five days later I discovered that I had brought back nine more pounds than what I had left with.

I think that I have figured out what happened. It could have been the meals on board ship, but as I said, they were supposed to be duty-free. After a nice breakfast of grits, eggs, fried potatoes, bacon, pastries, milk, fruit, and bagels, I made my way with Trillium to one of the Shoreboats that had been arranged for to take us to Avalon. We walked the crescent from the green pier to the Casino and then back to the place where we were to have our Inside Island Tour. By this time it was about 10:00 and I was feeling a little peckish. We went into a little bistro on the south end of the city and I bought a foot-long roast-beef sandwich. "You have got to be kidding me!" exclaimed Trillium. "I'm on vacation. Besides, its duty-free," I replied. In all honesty, however, I could only get half of it down before the bus was ready to cart us up the mountain, passing the buffalo, and into the airport. It was a bit of a jaunt and by the time we arrived at the former Western Airlines depot for Catalina Island, the first half of the sandwich had been pretty much compacted by the jostling about that had taken place in the bus. While others lolled about in the gift shop, I hammered down the second half of the sandwich.

I was feeling just a little too stuffed at dinner time and Trillium could have been feeling better as well. As a result, we did not join our regular companions at the Destiny Dining Room. We walked about the ship from stem to stern. I think that we enjoyed the fantail the best. Trillium liked looking at the waters of the Pacific being churned up by the ship's engines and the waves that fanned away from the ship into the distance; I liked the fact that the Pizza Shop, the sandwich store, and the ice cream dispenser were about 30 feet away.

The next day, after a moderate breakfast (I left out the grits and added a large omelet) Trillium and I decided to hoof it into Ensenada just to work our joints a little. It was a little too much for us: Trillium had injured her ankle before leaving Orem; I actually had an uncontrollable urge to roll along the sidewalk. About noon we boarded the bus to go out to La Buffadora, south of town. It was interesting. I worked out the rhythm of the spouts by using Mandelbrot's Fractals and as a result got some pretty good pictures. Trillium wanted ice cream, or something like unto it. We ended up with something like Popsicles but made out of whole fruit. I recommended the Lime flavor just because I knew that the little animals that made life unpleasant in Mexico cannot survive the acidic nature of lime juice. They were wonderful. We also bought two carne asada tacos from a little place there. A daring, but wonderful adventure. I watched the girls roll up the masa, flatten them in the tortilla maker, fry them on the grill, and then load the chopped beef and other yummy ingredients into that freshly made tortilla. I assumed that these, too, were duty-free. When we arrived back on board ship, we prepared for dinner. It was two of everything.

The rest of the week went in a similar vein. When we got off the ship in Long Beach, the Customs people asked me if I had anything to declare. I just rolled by them in silence. They seemed to understand. At the airport, since we had not eaten breakfast, I suggested that we have some airport food. Trillium indicated what she wanted. I ended up with a breakfast burrito the size of New Hampshire. This, too, was duty-free since California and New Hampshire have an understanding. When we got back to Salt Lake I found that I had some difficulty getting behind the wheel of the Mustang. By the time we arrived in Orem, my belly-button was chafed raw by the steering wheel.

The following Monday (this last Monday), I went into the University Medical Center to have blood extracted for the ferritin check. The lab technician (who shall remain Nameless), had to fuss around for about 15 minutes trying to find out if it was okay for her to take my blood. I was annoyed. I was not there to sit about waiting for, contemplating even, the sharp, stabbing pain that I was about to receive. I became somewhat agitated, even a little miffed, so much so that when she finally flounced back into the lab and lashed me up, I did not even feel the needle going into my arm. I was waiting for it, I was flinching properly, but all that duty-free iron had dulled my senses.

So now to the bottom line. "Doc Holliday" was accompanied by a pre-med student this morning. The fellow was trying to decide whether he should pursue a career in poking and prodding. I let the "Doc" sing his little song for me, even though both he and I knew that he had sung it too many times already. Again, there was an upside to all of that duty-free iron that had dulled my senses. My ferritin level was at 530, some 61 points below what it had been a month ago. The plebotomies and ferritin checks are to continue for the next six months and in May I will go back in to have my liver, spleen, lungs, heart, and pancreas checked once again for abnormalities. I confessed my diet of the previous week to "Doc". He said "Zaphod, don't get yourself all worked up about this stuff. You are coming along just fine..... although,... you are looking a little puffy".

I have lost four pounds since last Friday. I am not certain how much of that has been duty-free iron. Of all the things that I have been eating of late, it is the most irresponsible.

The Lay of the Land and the Sea

2008-10-18T11:47:00.000-07:00

This week has been full of adventure. I received a communique from DMBA indicating that the $107.20 charge for my monthly phlebotomy was unacceptable, notwithstanding my extraordinarily detailed analysis of the Utah Regional Medical Center's extraordinarily high overhead for taking my blood and then having to throw it away ("clank"). Medicare Advantage was perfectly willing to pay $72.09, which they coughed up almost immediately (they coughed twice, because UVRMC had dragged their feet a bit after the first phlebotomy in August, and then sent a single bill for August and September). DMBA then suggested that the remaining $35.11 (also twiced)was mine to pay. I was somewhat astonished at the decision. How could this be? Was this my punishment for consuming more than $85.00 in Barq's Root Beer and Lorna Doones? I decided that it was time to call the boys in Salt Lake.

After going through another mind-boggling assortment of answering machine options, I finally made it through to "Gernrnnantily"; apparently DMBA has a similar policy about answering with clearly enunciated given names as does the University of Utah. I finally mustered up my courage and said, "Well, Gernrnnantily, I have a perceived problem with my bill; and may I say that when I suggest that I have a problem with my bill, I mean to say that you are going to have the same problem momentarily after I shrug it off my shoulders on to yours."

"Oh! Isn't that nice!" said the Big G.

I then began my rant about the purpose of the phlebotomies, that they were therapeutic, designed to save DMBA and Medicare the riches of King Midas. Without the phlebotomies, I was looking at a number of debilitating diseases involving my liver, pancreas, heart, and brain, all of which organs were extraordinarily valuable to me. Additionally I was certain that if "Doc Holliday" had to treat any one of the debilitated organs, he and his wife would be spending a great deal of time seeing the rest of the world that they could not afford on the meager hemochromatosis ticket.

"Hmmmm," said G. "Can you hold?"

I responded with my best prostate answer, "If it is not more than an hour or so, I think I can manage." After a few minutes, G came back on line.

"As inconceivable as it may seem, there appears to be a mistake on the way your insurance information was entered into the computer."

"And, how much do I owe? Is there a standard co-pay every time I go to the Infusion Center?"

"I'm not certain," said G. "It could be anything from $.11 to $15.00 depending on which two of digits on your balance the management is willing to deduct from your bill. If they take out the first two, then it will be $.11. If they decide to take out the first and the last digits and reverse the order of the middle two digits and eliminate the decimal point, you would owe $15.00."

"How are these decisions made?" I asked.

"Well, it sort of depends on whether they use a pointy golden needle with a silver syringe attached or if they use a 14-gauge platinum shotgun with diamond pellets on the target that has the "$35.11" written on it. In any event, we will have the results back from the executives in a day or two and we will you know. I am really sorry about all of this. There was just a topographical error." He said goodbye without explaining to me what the topographical error was.

I have made lots of topographical errors in my life, particularly while hiking about in the mountains of California, but I have never been lost nor have I ever been billed $35.11 for taking the wrong trail. I will be waiting with baited breath to find out what really transpires.

In the meantime, I returned to the Infusion Center to have another pint drawn. This was on Wednesday about noon. "Nurse Chappell" was there with bells on ready to put me under the needle once again. She said that she had read my blog, looking for her nurse friend and herself in the various entries. I asked her if she had read every word or if she had merely scanned the verbiage hoping for a lucky hit.

She replied, "You know how I give you that little shot of lanocane just before I put your arm under the drill press?" I nodded in the affirmative. "Well, I don't have any analgesics anywhere near my computer monitor. If you think I am going to make myself comatose reading every word you write without a pain-killer, then you are crazier than you look." (I had forgotten to comb my hair before making my appointment.)

On the way home, Trillium offered to take me to lunch at Carl's Jr. Believe it or not, I said that I would rather not. My experience at Burger King a week or so was still causing me gastronomical nightmares. I said, "But we could stop at Macy's where I could get myself a maple bar."

"Solid iron," Trillium said and we drove home.

The next morning I had an appointment with Louis' Bone Emporium for my weekly adjustment. My internal clock was focused on Friday at 9:00 instead of Thursday morning at 8:15. The receptionist gave me a call at 8:30 asking me where I was. I said, "I am having temporal anomalies in the time-space continuum this morning." She said I could come in as soon as I was able. Louis has been having some difficulty getting my left hip to stay where it is supposed to be. Thursday morning he stretched me out on "The Rack" and began singing "This Nine-pound Hammer", a ditty written in the 1960s about John Henry, the Steel Drivin' Man. I walked out a few minutes later with my hip completely resolved never to topographically stray again.

After I got home, I called up Barnacle Raff, my neighbor, and told him that I was ready to go on our weekly bike ride (weekly planned, but it has taken us two months to take two trips). We rode from the Riverwoods Mall up the Provo Riverwalk all the way to Vivian Park. "You're doing better today, Zaphod. You made it all the way up and back with only one stop." I told him that I have been resolving all of my topographical problems of late and I find that I am in better condition to deal with the change in altitude.

Finally, Trillium and I are leaving topography behind for a week. Monday we fly to Los Angeles (there is no engagement with the topography at 30,000 feet), to board the Carnival Paradise (ensconced in a cabin so close to the waterline as to invite no suggestion of topography), and to spend five days on a perfectly flat Pacific Ocean (there is a reason why it is called the "Pacific Ocean"). During that time I will be able to consume as much Duty-free Iron as I want. The only downside to the trip is the fact that Carnival charges $35.11 if you get lost between Lido Deck and Deck 6B.

Iron Man 2

2008-10-13T16:57:00.000-07:00

The 30th Annual Ironman competition was held in Hawaii this past weekend. It featured the traditional Wakiki Rough Water Swim, the Around Oahu Bike Ride, and the Honolulu Marathon. The winner this past Sunday was Craig Alexander. He accomplished the entire circuit in 8 hours, 17 minutes, and 45 seconds.

On Friday, I became involved in my own Ironman competition. The Young Men's President invited me to come along with the Boy Scouts, ostensibly so that I could guide the boys through the Emergency Preparedness Merit Badge. The event started out with a 15 mile ride from Louis' house, through southern Orem, across Provo, to the mouth of Provo Canyon, up the Riverwalk to Vivian Park. From there, the boys and their leaders went up the steep road into the South Fork of Provo Canyon to Big Springs campground. It was a grueling bike ride, with everyone tumbling into the campsite about 8:15 PM (The whole thing had started about 4:30). My peculiar talents and skills were immediate recognized from the very beginning of the trek when I was handed the keys to Louis' Suburban and asked to drive the truck and the trailer up to the camp site.

Lucky Ben, the father of one of the boys, was to accompany me, riding shotgun in the car. As it turned out, since he is 30 years younger than myself, he had the opportunity of wheelbarrowing most of the camping gear from the trailer up the hill where we were to set up our tents (at least seven trips; a couple a hundred yards each). I have to say that I did carry my own gear, including my rather substantial back pack, my tent, and my aluminum cot. I am determined not to be uncomfortable when I am outside the house.

The first part of the South Fork Ironman having been accomplished, I embarked on the second leg: the water portion. I have been camping with these guys before and they all, both young and old, bring a whole new meaning to the phrase "The Cave of a Thousand Bears". I decided that I would sleep the sleep of the innocent by camping as close to the nearby stream as I could. The water was about a foot and a half deep, and about four feet wide. Inasmuch as we were on a fairly steep incline, the water was fast and noisy. For eight or nine hours I heard nothing but that water rushing by. No snoring of any kind disturbed my rest, even though Lucky Ben had set up his tent not three feet from mine.

The next morning, the boys were to begin the final leg of the Ironman: the Big Springs Marathing. At first, Lucky Ben and Iron Rod (another boy's father) were going to lead the charge up the hill, but Iron Rod needed to make an executive type phone call and needed to go back to Vivian Park to get enough bars to do so. Louis looked around the camp, fixed his eyes on me, and said, "Does anyone here know how to get to Big Springs?" He knew perfectly well that I had been there on at least two other occasions. I was nominated to lead the boys up the hill and back down. Thus I participated directly in the last leg of the triathlon.

I came back not much worse for wear, save for the blister on the knuckle of the second toe of my right foot. It was all of that sassy down-hill skipping that did me in. The boys and their leaders decided that they wanted to bike the return trip back to Orem, even though it had been snowing regularly all morning. Louis handed me the keys to the truck and away we all went.

Since I was the first one to get back home and into the shower, I figured that I won the competition. It only took me 21 hours, 4 minutes, and 17 seconds. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Iron Man

2008-10-05T10:01:00.000-07:00

Notwithstanding Trillium's opposition, I bought a copy of "Iron Man" at Costco on Wednesday. We watched it last Friday night. Just for the record, as far as I can tell, there is absolutely no connection between the title character and myself, except for the shrapnel pieces driving toward the vital organs, particularly the heart. Instead of a hole in my chest into which Pepper Potts can stuff her little hand, it is in my arm. Whether Nurse Chappell stuffed her little hand into the hole made to extract my blood is beyond my ken, inasmuch as I invariably close my eyes whenever one of those little steel pointy things gets within a two or three meters from me. Alas, I am not a super-hero, a terrible self-realization.

Steel Crazy After All These Years

2008-09-28T17:13:00.000-07:00

A week or so I went out to Seven-mile Pass to sing for a couple of hundred Scouts and Scouters. I had a pretty good time, but as I said then, I really had an attack of iron filings as a result of my wilderness foray. This weekend, I went with the Young Women and their leaders up to my friend and counselor's cabin at Schofield. I had a wonderful time. The weather was perfect; the sky was clear and the temperature just right. The next morning, the sun came up and gently pried my eyes open in the very best way. A short time later, I found myself on the veranda looking up at a mountainside filled with the yellowing leaves of a hundred thousand quaking aspens, mixed in with the reds and browns of hardwoods, the deep greens of the conifers and the deep crystal blue of the Utah sky at 9000 feet. I was in heaven. My main assignment at this little gathering was to play and sing love songs while the girls designed their wedding dresses and wrote what they were hoping to find in "Mr. Right". I doubt sincerely that any of them said "I hope that he plays the guitar."

There were things that transpired that reminded me that I was still conscious of my diet, even though my ferritin count has dropped considerably. On Friday night, the girls were served chicken cordon blue, baked potatoes with the interiors mashed and blended with sour cream and butter (and a bunch of other stuff), and layered with strips of cheddar cheese. There were rolls and Martinelli's, fruit salad and other trimmings. I was quite good. I took pride in the fact that I only ate one CCB and one half of a potato. I had a couple of servings of fruit salad and an inordinate amount of Martinelli's. I was feeling pretty good about my self restraint until they brought me a piece of "wedding cake". It was about five or six inches square; it was the corner piece; there was enough frosting to have made another whole cake; I ate every bit of it in spite of the fact that I knew that the sugar was going to facilitate the absorption of any and all of the iron in my dinner regardless of its source. The frosting reminded me on a regular basis during the night that I had had the temerity to stuff it all down my pie hole. I could feel my liver getting heavier and heavier.

Breakfast was interesting as well. I could smell the bacon all the way down in the basement of the cabin. I padded up the stairs and found bacon, sausage, milk, orange juice, and blintzes. I think that I had only four pieces of bacon, one sausage, a glass each of the fluids and a blintz. I said to myself, "I have been moderate here; I am on the high road to recovery here." The blintz, however, was my undoing. I am not sure what the blintz itself was made of, but the pan of blintzes had been smothered in dark brown sugar, great crusty chunks of it. The blintz smelled so good and went down so well, that I could not think about what all of that sugar was doing with the bacon and that singular piece of sausage. I suspect that they went straight to my pancreas.

As we were getting ready to go home, the young women leaders asked me if I wanted a sandwich for the ride home. I asked if Gerry were having one. He said, "No, I'll be okay." I said that there was no way that I was going to have something to eat in front of my friend and we left it at that. The girls packed up and headed out for Orem. Gerry and I stayed behind to check all the doors and windows and shut off all of the lights and such. The cabin would be formally prepared for winter-time in November.

We had a great ride home, discussing many of the same topics that had arisen during the sessions with the girls. When we arrived in Spanish Fork, I turned to Gerry and said, "Well, you didn't have any lunch, and we have been on the road an hour and a half. How would you like to stop for something to eat?" He, knowing me extremely well, having been on many long trips with me, having survived many a camp together during the past eight years, and knowing my peculiar preferences in fast food, said "Oh, I don't think that I could turn down a stop at Burger King". I managed to cross six lanes of traffic in forty feet and pulled into the home of the Whopper.

Now I know that you are thinking, "Hmmm. This does not sound much like a fellow who is really concerned about his ferritin count. A Whopper has what, eight or ten pounds of iron in it?" I have decided that a Whopper is the best of the great hamburgers because it is cooked over an open flame and not on a grill. Here is my logic. While it is true that every hamburger patty has a vast amount of heme iron, it is also true that hamburgers that are cooked over an open flame have less available iron. As everyone knows, iron mixed with carbon and heated to an appropriate temperature transmogrifies into steel. Therefore, by eating the Whopper I would not be consuming digestible iron but indigestible steel. At least that is what I told myself as I ordered a #1 combo "large" at the counter. Gerry shares my taste in BK cuisine and we soon found ourselves seated at a booth with all of the makings of a late lunch/early dinner.

It went down smooth. As I said to Gerry as I was polishing off the last of the French fries, "Well, I didn't have to grease my lips for that one." We got back into the Mustang and soon I was able to deposit my friend at his doorstep. When I walked into the house, Trillium, T-ma, and three of my daughters were about to leave for Millie's to have dinner prior to going to the Women's Broadcast at 6:00 PM. I could have complained about not having any dinner for myself, but my innards had already begun to complain about the half-baked steel slab that I had just dumped into the cauldron. I did not eat dinner. Instead I watched the last bit of the first "Rambo" movie. I found it particularly entertaining since it was being broadcast in Spanish. I watched the first part of "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" in Spanish and I decided that it had been bad enough in English. I eventually went to bed. The Whopper was having second thoughts; my tummy was having second thoughts; the gigantic raft of steel had second thoughts. The only one not having second thoughts was me. I kept trying to convince myself that I had not done anything self-injuring, that the steel was not causing the deep bowel complaint, that it was probably the frosting from the wedding cake. As the raft began to break up, the preternatural steel ingots began to rumble about and although I eventually got to sleep, I woke up on several occasions during the night with a moaning and groaning accompanied by grumbling that resembled nothing so much as the sound that would be made by a gaggle of loose cannons sliding around on the poop deck during hurricane season in the Bahamas. I did not really recover from my dance with the hamburger until Trillium stuffed me full of the most wonderful soup this afternoon for dinner.

During the day I had occasion to relate my nocturnal experiences with the BK #1 to my friends. Gerry reminded me of my argument for going to Burger King in the first place was the forge effect caused by the iron and the carbon combination. "That was the real Whopper!" he declared. I am trying to decide if the next self-deception is going cause me as much consternation. I have decided, though, that if my ferritin count goes up next month that I am going to blame it on the wedding cake.

Iron Futures

2008-09-25T17:03:00.000-07:00

The stock market has been taking a hit lately, even the S&P 500 where I have a small percentage of my investments. Years ago I decided that I would not be completely dependant upon the vagaries of the free enterprise system. Instead I determined to diversify economically. I thought that if I put most of my savings in Guaranteed Funds, say 60%, I could count on a constant though minimal return on my money. I decided to put 30% into Mutual Funds, specifically the Bond Market. A lowly 10% went into stocks, the afore mentioned S&P 500. I have done fairly well for that 40-year period and even though the stocks are all seeming to tank, my portfolio is still generating revenue. I have friends who have invested in gold, coins and bullion, and have given me to understand that they have gone very well for themselves. I have watched that commodity rise and fall hundreds of dollars an ounce and I cannot imagine anyone being bright enough to keep a handle on the market sufficiently to make money with gold trading. I suspect that the brokers do fine. however. I mention all of this because I think that there is only one precious metal that is making anybody, anywhere, any money at all: iron.

I mentioned in a previous blog entry that there was a time when I could go to the blood bank and sell a pint of my musical blood for about $25.00. That is in 1962 dollars. I hesitate to guess what that would be in 2008 dollars. In other words, I could go to the bank every six weeks or so and make about a third of my monthly salary as an enlisted man in the Air Force just by sitting quietly with a needle rammed into one of my veins for 20 minutes or so. As I indicated earlier, my visits did not appear to be profitable for the Red Cross or any one else, given the amount of juice and cookies that I would eat during the phlebotomy. I suspect, I do not know, that the blood banks must have been making something of a profit, however, when my blood came off the shelf. Certainly blood, particularly my winsome B+ kind, would have had some value to a man who was undergoing some other kind of "-otomy". Would he not be willing to pay a premium for a commodity that he was in dire need of? Would not the blood bank suggest that the blood which they had extracted from me at such great cost to themselves ought to require a substantial compensation? This is free enterprise at work and those willing to invest in a renewable resource like "me" must have thought to do well or they would not have started the bank in the first place. I do not know what their markup was and it probably just as well that I do not know. But every indication is that if you want to make money, buy iron.

Hemochromatosis was invented in 1995, at least that is when the medical profession began turning a coin by specifically treating the disease. I have yet to discover how much my "cure" is going to cost, but you ought to know that every time I go to see "Doc Holliday" I pay five dollars to the receptionists at the front desk. I think that DMBA and Medicare have to pony up a bit more, considerably more, astonishingly more, inconceivably more.... Well, you get the idea. Maybe when I am feeling just a little more effusive, I will run up to the bill box and figure out just how much the "Doc" and his gang are banking every time I go to talk with them. I did think, however, that it would be a helpful begining if I simply told you about the lucrative business of the phlebotomy itself.

To date, I have had two phlebotomies. One in August and again in September. I have already chatted with you about those visits and how well I was treated, how cheerily each of my jokes was received, how charismatic I was made to appear. In the end, I felt that giving my pint was a delight to everyone concerned. I now know that other than sticking the needle in and taking the needle out, with the addition of a couple of mess preventatives, I did all the work. First, the nurse wrapped a piece of rubber webbing around my arm so that my veins would bulge out more than they normally do. After finding a nice plump rise near the inside of my elbow, "Nurse Chappel" (a young Majel Barrett) would slide a "teensey-weensey" needle under the skin nearby so as to deaden the immediate area so that when she put the business end of the sump pump into my arm, I would not scream bloody murder. Once the sandwich-size ziplock bag was hooked up to the needle and the clear plastic tube, I was given a rubber ball upon which to focus my anxiety. "Just squeeze this, sweety", Majel said. Of course, when I did so, all of the rippling muscles in my forearm began forcing more of my blood into the bag. I suppose that the nurse could have created the same effect by pushing all of the blood from my wrists up toward my elbow. But, noooooo... she made me do it. I thought how much this was like milking a cow and that if she had put an electric milker on each of my fingers she could have saved both of us a lot of time and effort. After the pint was taken, the nurse put a cotton ball on the gaping hole in my arm and wrapped more of the rubber webbing on it to hold it fast so I didn't scatter sunshine all over the floor.

So, what did all of this cost my insurance company? How much overhead was involved in the extraction? How much did "Nurse Chappel" and her cronies profit by the ten minutes I was in the chair? I have an itemized list.

Building, suite, and cubical of the Infusion Center for 10 minutes: ($30,000,000, amortized over 35 years, at $1.63 a minute): = $16.30
Use of Nurse Chappell for 10 minutes ($25.00 per hour; $.42 per minute): = $4.20
Use of one 14-gauge needle for 10 minutes ($20.00 reusable for a year; $.00003 per minute): = $.0003
One sandwich sized ziplock bag: = $.47, (but they probably paid a bit more because it wasn't used for any of the staff's sandwiches).
One 3-foot plastic tube: = $.67, (but they probably paid more because it wasn't used for syphoning gas from my car in the parking lot; this time)
One really nifty cotton ball: = $.02, (but only because they were able to get it with about 4 billion others)
Two feet of sticky rubber webbing: $1.03, (but only because the alien suppliers from Alpha Centuri were overstocked this month)

If I have done the resulting math problem properly, the total overhead cost for each of my phlebotomies was $22.6903. The Infusion Center charged my insurance company $107.00, making someone a tidy profit of $84.3097. Well, it would have been a tidy profit had it not been for the $87.54 worth of root beer and Lorna Doones that I consumed during the operation. This profit/loss margin is known as "leveraging". They were hoping to make money on me, possibly with the sale of my commodity in mind, but alas, all was for naught since they had to put it in the trash can, the expense of which they also failed to consider.

As I said earlier, I went to the University Health Care Center last Monday in order to have a ferritin check done. Since I did not get any cookies at all during that five minute exercise, I suppose they are on a better foundation financially. "Doc Holliday" called me this morning with the results of my test. "Well, said he, "I have good news and bad news"

"Oh?"

"Yes. First of all your ferritin count is down to 591. Another 150 points and you will be down to high normal". I was pleased with that. I started out at 827 and after one phlebotomy dropped to 684, and now I am at 591 after the second one. Another couple of months and I will be completely under control, insofar as the hemochromatosis is concerned.

"That is really good to hear. What's the bad news?"

"You don't have to come to your appointment tomorrow."

"What's so bad about that?"

"Well, I was really hoping to take my wife to the Bahamas this weekend, but I think that I am going to have to put that off for another time."

"I'm sorry things didn't work out for you."

"Oh,that's okay", he said. "The New England Journal of Medicine just identified another genetic disease that I think that you just might have, and it has 'Paris' written all over it. Something about 'root beer and cookie' overloading."

Buy "Barq's" everybody. "Lorna Doones" are going through the roof.

Needle Song

2008-09-24T08:05:00.000-07:00

There is only one song about needles that I like. Needless to say, it is a James Taylor ditty. I tried to find a version of it for my player, but it wasn't available. JT spent a little time recovering from one sort of thing or another and this, supposedly, is his take on being tranquilized. I realize that this is not quite the same thing that I do in conjunction with needles, but slightly oblique content hasn't stopped me in the past. Frankly, I'm just waiting for Friday to get here and I wanted to hear the song again; it makes me feel that I am not quite alone in all of this.

Just knocking around the zoo on a Thursday afternoon

There's bars on all the windows and they're counting up the spoons

And if I'm feeling edgy there's a chick who's paid to be my slave

But she'll hit me with a needle if she thinks I'm trying to misbehave

Now the keeper's trying to cool me says I'm bound to be alright

But I know that he can't fool me 'cause I'm putting him uptight

And I can feel him getting edgy every time I make a sudden move

And I can hear them celebrating every time I up and leave the room

Now my friends all came to see me they point at me and stare

Said he's just like the rest of us so what's he doing in there

They hide in their movie theaters drinking juice-keeping tight

'Cause they're certain about one thing that zoo's no place to spend the night

Just knocking around the zoo on a Thursday afternoon

There's bars on all the windows and they're counting up the spoons

And if I'm feeling edgy there's a chick who's paid to be my slave

But she'll hit me with a needle if she thinks I'm trying to misbehave

***

These are my sentiments just about every time I go to the Infusion Center. I suppose that one of the reasons that I misbehave there, is that I know that I am going to be hit with the needle regardless of whether I behave or not.

Well, after all that, there is another needle song, but it involves Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, and Tammy Wynette. For some of you, that little tune will seem like the Infusion Center writ large.

Iron Music and Diamond Needles

2008-09-22T16:30:00.000-07:00

"Olive Oil", a non-family member who now follows my blog, made a comment about the music in my playlist, that she thought it was "great". I was somewhat flattered at first, but then I realized that while I had been choosing my shuffled music for myself, I now had an independent audience to somehow please. Several of my children have been driven crazy by some of the pieces (Burger-Dance" for example). Others have been partially scandalized by my selection of anything by Britney Spears (all part of a first-timer's joke). Other have been so taken with the music that they had to turn it off in order to be able to read what I had written (At least that what they have said.).

Trillium has wonderful music on her blog, mostly classical with a few delightfully orchestrated modern pieces thrown in. Davola really surprised me with his selection. Once, when we were headed north for some sort of activity in New Mexico, he regaled me with a concert of heavy metal music that undoubtedly got my blood and other iron-overloaded organs feeling envious. Nothing in his blog now even comes close. I'm impressed. All of the other family bloggers have music unique to themselves and it gives me great pleasure to visit and listen to their choices.

Each of the pieces I have selected are in order of their selection (even though they do not play in order) and fit with each of the entries I have made. I realized this afternoon that I had not selected one for the "Iron Horse" blog; it was about the same time I was contemplating saying something about the visit that I had with the blood factory today. I searched in vain for a good one. There was a sappy song about an "Iron Horse" by some plaintive crooner who clearly didn't have a handle on his subject matter. By the time you read this I will have deleted it and replaced it with another, less appropriate song by America (if I can find it). (Actually, on second thought, I have left the sappy one in.)

This morning I went into the University of Utah medical center to have blood drawn for another ferritin test. Friday I will meet with "Doc Holliday" again to see how the phlebotomy from two weeks ago has improved my frame of mind and body. Just as an aside, doesn't "phlebotomy" sound like some sort medical procedure gone bad; you know like "flub-otomy". I thought of that after I came home from the "Infusion Center" this last time. The first experience there went well, considering my condition. Two weeks ago, however, the withdrawal went somewhat amiss. That evening I noticed that I had a little red spot on the inside of my left elbow where the needle had been inserted. I didn't think much of it until a day or so later when that whole area was one gigantic bruise. It didn't hurt, but it looked terrible. I asked Trillium about it and she said, "Well, you will be okay, but that is an example of bad needle technique". Of course, that was just what I wanted to hear, "Bad Needle Technique", hereafter "BNT". I think that I must have been the victim of BNT (pronounced "bent") when I was a child. It was all of those BNT needles that gave me the willies. When your doctor uses a needle that looks like it has been designed for hooking a tuna, you know that you are in for a bad time.

Anyhow, I went in for my ferritin check and while I was waiting I thought about how I might wring a blog entry out of the experience. The appointment lasted only five minutes and that included the walk in and back, to and from the car. The only thing I could think of, however, was the First Edition's first hit, "I Just Dropped in to See What Kind of Condition My Condition was In". I considered that if this entry were going to be another "Looking for Space" experience then at least I could bring in a decent song. I finally located it this afternoon and before I loaded it up, I listened to it. I had not remembered it being so "edgy". It was like being with Davola all over again. It could have been a Queen hit for all I could tell. I finally selected a bluesy version by Sharon Jones in hopes that nobody listening could actually understand the lyrics. Kenny Rogers articulates his words; Sharon does not. However, it is possible to hear the tag, and that was all I was after anyway. Enjoy!

I read today about a new technology, a replacement for the CD. It is an "SD", a chip that you can insert into your iPod, if you have one. What a world! I grew up listening to Vaughn Monroe recordings by playing ten-inch ceramic disks on an old Victrola. They were played at 78 rmps (revolutions per minute) and eventually would be called "78s". I have a bunch of these left to me by my mother. The first recording I ever bought, however, was a "45", a vinyl recording that had one song on each side, playing at 45 rpms. I think it was a Richie Valens piece, "La Bamba" or something. I have a hundred or so of these, representing the most popular music of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Between the "78s" and the "45s" were the LPs (Long-Playing) albums, sometimes now called "33 and 1/3s". I have a couple a hundred of these, with folk music and classical music making up most of the titles.

Why have I ruminated about all of these old records? Because the way they are played is by using a "turn-table" with an arm equipped with... (you guessed it!)... a "NEEDLE". The first record player I bought had a sapphire needle; when I really came into my own financially, I bought one with a diamond needle. When the needle sets down on the grooves of the record, the record player then sucks out all of the music. Enough of those "note-otomies" and the record just withers away, unable to provide any more.

I have wondered if my blood is musical, if when they are carting away the trash at the Infusion Center, the custodians can hear my dulcet tones making their way through a rendition of one of James Taylor's songs. When the technicians are analyzing my ferritin count up at the University of Utah can they faintly hear my version of a really good Nanci Griffith or Joni Mitchell melody? I would like to think so. I do not fear for withering, though; the music is in my bones and there is more where that last pint came from.

Romancing the Iron-Horse

2008-09-20T07:19:00.000-07:00

In a fit of passion last night, I invited Trillium out to dinner. Both of us were suffering from cabin-fever again and alien food seems to cure us for a while. Trillium's mother was invited as well and we headed out to our favorite "hot-spot", Sizzler. I say "favorite" hot-spot because that is the one place we can all sort of agree on. Sometimes we head off to Appleby's or Magelby's or somebody's other "-by's", but we come back to Sizzleby's because it seems to be safe. We get good parking thanks to T-ma and the menu hardly ever changes as much as the management does. We arrived at 4:45, just in time for the geriatric crowd. (Notice that night-time comes pretty early for the Beeblebrox household.)

T-ma moves kind of slow, so I generally lead the way to the counter; besides the path has a little bit of a labyrinth aspect to it (I fully expect to run into David Bowie at some point). Last night (or yesterday afternoon, for you of more tender years) I held back, contemplating what I should do.

There is only one reason for going to Sizzler to eat: the steaks (I take that back, there are only two reasons for going to Sizzler: the steaks and the salad bar. I go to Sizzler for the HEME-IRON and, as it turns out, for the NON-HEME IRON.) Should it surprise anyone that the signature Sizzler Steak is served on a hot iron plate? It is a tacit, though significant warning label.

Every once in a while I have the "all-you-can-eat shrimp", but I usually remember too late that the menu item should read "all-you -can-eat of the deep-fried wallpaper paste". I became addicted to shrimp while I was in southern Mexico. I have never had better shrimp in so many ways as I did at the ferry station near Isla del Carmen in 1966. I have never had its equal since. I seldom have the fish at Sizzler; if I want bad fish I go to McGrath's or the Red Lobster. If I want good fish, I go up Hobble Creek Canyon and catch my limit of Utah Brownies.

As I was saying, I held back last night because this was the first time that I had been to a restaurant since my first phlebotomy and I wanted to be responsible. At fast-food places you can be a little less responsible because you have less time to think about what you are doing. At Carl's Jr., for example, I can usually hammer down the $6.00 Guacamole Bacon Burger and the accompanying french fries and root beer in less time than it takes for two synapses to fire in my brain. At Sizzler, there is a rather pedestrian approach to ordering and service that gives one a rather lengthy opportunity to contemplate the eternities and how soon one may be entering into said place if one continues to eat IRON with impunity. T-ma ordered the salmon, a good choice at 1.2 mg of iron for her 7 ounce serving. Trillium ordered the senior steak, a genteel serving of about 3.5 ounces. The cashier said "Would you like to upgrade that to a 48-ounce side of beef for a buck?" I will not repeat Trillium's response because it was funnier than mine. "Well, then," continued the cashier, "would you like to have the salad bar for a buck?" Trillium agreed, but I could tell that she was eying the cutlery and the various pots and pans in which the salad bar was served. I whispered, "I don't think that we get to take those home." If looks could kill.....

I bellied up to the bar ready to place my order. "I'll have the senior steak, medium, with the baked potato and the salad bar." The cashier said, "Hey, you're a big fella; I bet you would like the upgrade." I muttered something about hemochromatosis under my breath; you know how it is when you are uneasy about a medical condition being discussed in public. She leaned toward me and sweetly whispered, "Don't be shy. If you floss afterwards and brush real good, you won't have that problem any more." I paid $31.00 for that piece of advice.

So what happened to my body as a result of our little extravaganza at Sizzler. I will tell you because I know you can hardly wait.

I had the following:

One 8 ounce steak: According to the powers that be, I consumed 8 mg of iron, about half of it heme-iron. I could have done worse. If I had consumed a half-pound of Bambi's mother, I would have introduced about 16 mg of iron into my system. But, I could have eaten Thumper whole and had less than either of the other two, according to Ernst Lucker's article entitled "Content and Distribution of Iron in Rabbit Meat: A Model Study on Nutritional Values and Bio-Analytical Variance" that appeared in "Libensmittel-Wissenschaft und-Technologie" in 1998. (Never say that my readers come away from my blogs uninformed; I am a Google-Blogger.)

One baked potato with butter and sour cream: This apparently would have amounted to about 2 mg of non-heme iron had I not added 3.5 ounces of chicken liver gravy (another 9 mg)

One piece of fried cheese toast: Cold, fried cheese toast is the most vile substance known to man. I took one bite and laid the rest down, probably saving myself the ingestion of .000007 mg of iron.

One plate full of green salad: Lots of non-heme iron here. I had the iceberg lettuce, cucumbers,(mostly peeled), cherry tomatoes, red onions, red and green peppers (a fetish I picked up in New Mexico), a whole egg, a couple of Italian green peppers (the only reason to go the the Olive Garden), and the whole mess slathered in blue cheese dressing. The egg was the killer: 1 mg of iron.

One-third plate of Waldorf salad: It looked good, and tasted okay, but I think that Trillium's is better. I think she puts non-ferrous marshmallows in the bowl with the rest of the ingredients. (Do you know that somebody has actually figured out that one cup of miniature marshmallows has 1 mg of iron in it? When I "googled" for iron content in marshmallows I got 72,000 hits! What a world!)

One-third plate of Macaroni salad: As counter-intuitive as this sounds, macaroni salad (a five ounce serving) as 8 mg of iron. A third of a plate seems like would have slightly more.

One-third plate of Crab salad: I didn't eat much of this. All I could think of was Sponge Bob Square Pants and Patrick softly weeping in the corner, particularly in light of the Bambi allusions above. As its turns out, Crabby Patties have a lot of iron in them, about the same as beef.

One gallon of Strawberry Lemonade: Trillium pointed out to me that all of the vitamin C in this outrageously large amount of juice undoubtedly caused me to absorb all of the iron, heme and non-heme, that I consumed last night. It troubled me all night thinking about it; every two hours or so it troubled me.

In other words, I fell off the wagon last night and under the wheels of the iron horse. Hopefully when I go to see "Doc Holliday" next week he won't notice the tread marks.

(Yes, I know, trains don't have rubber tires on them, but I have been at this a long time and that was the best I could come up with...... Sheeesh!)

Trekking for Iron

2008-09-18T09:31:00.000-07:00

Last night was a fireside in our stake for the youth who went on the Handcart Trek during the summer. It began at 6:30 and ended at 9:00 or so. Included was a 45 minute Photostory 3 presentation made from 3000 pictures and videos taken during the three days we walked the dusty byways west of Utah Lake (I am not kidding; 3000+++++++++). I liked the scenes that I was in, for the most part. I did not recognize hardly any of the faces in the presentation. It is not that I am not social, it just that most of the time I was the last person in the line of 200 people strung out along the trail. I can recognize the backs of their heads anywhere.

My mantra on the Trek became "I'm the last dog into the kennel, the last bee into the hive, and the last cricket out of the seagull". I endeared myself to all. We all ate well on that trip; I gained twelve pounds in three days, almost all of it in iron. Inasmuch as one can lose iron from fingernail clippings, hair, and skin, I managed to hold excessive weight gain at bay. I lost considerable iron out of my feet, as the blisters came and went, and as my bronzing technique utterly failed into the first stages of leprosy. I had a few broken nails while pushing handcarts and setting up tents, and there were the hurricane winds that whipped my feathery-soft hair from off my head into the Great American Desert. It is hard to measure iron loss in this fashion; that is, with body parts just falling off into the blue, or brown, or green, or some sort of natural pastel.

After the video presentation there were the obligatory sentimental expressions about how wonderful the whole thing was. Being three months after the fact gives a sort of mystical glow to all of the whining, pain, and filth that we all had to endure at the time. I thought the experience educational. I learned for myself, first hand, that I am getting a little too old for this sort of thing. As I said earlier, I am not certain how much iron I lost on the trail, but my guess is that it is easier to go to the Infusion Center once a month in order to get the desired medical effect, notwithstanding the feral smiles and the eager eyes.

When I arrived home from the fireside, I finished watching "Warning From Space" a Japanese movie about giant star-fish who come to earth to warn us about Planet R, a fiery body on a collision course with our planet (a rot of iron ross, I terr you). I also watched the outtakes from the Trek DVD (How can you have out-takes in a documentary?) I also watched a special feature called "Bandits" with which I had something to do. The "Bandit Dancers" were a mostly anonymous group (wearing bandannas you see) who preferred swaying to the square-dance music rather than enticing iron-loss through the soles of their feet on the dusty dance floor.

After preparing for sleep, I went into my den to turn off the lights and the computer. But what to my wondering eyes should appear, but two bags of candy that Trillium had bought for me at Wal-Mart: a bag of Riesens (chewy chocolate caramel covered in rich European chocolate) and a bag of snack size Almond Joys. Yippy! Skippy!

(Now just a little aside regarding motive and technique in blog writing, from my point of view. All I really wanted to talk about was the candy, but I did not want anyone to think that I am obsessed with candy of any kind. I thought that if I led everyone into the wilds of central Utah for a paragraph or two, and then discuss my somnolent reaction to the products of that experience, that discussing the merits of chocolate would seem normal, perhaps even understandable. Now that I am at this point, I think that the methodology is somewhat flawed. Live and learn.)

I used to look at the pricing labels on products that I was prepared to buy (Ooooo! Ten pounds of hot dogs for a dollar! Ooooo! Ten pounds of margarine for a dollar!) I then began to look at the ingredients (Yeow! Beef lips and pork snouts! Yeow! Hydrogenated lard!) As I grew older and stouter, I began to look at the total calories in the item as compared with the fat from calories. Some were somewhat reasonable (Hmmmmm..... one serving 200 calories; calories from fat 12. Goody! Ten pounds of broccoli for a dollar!) Some, Trillium confided in me, are a little suspect (Hmmmmm.... one serving 200 calories; calories from fat 6,089,867. Yes, but everyone needs to have ten pounds of Polish sausage on hand for emergencies!) Now, as of the past couple of months, iron has risen into my culinary consciousness.

Do you know that Riesens, the finest manufactured chocolate on the planet, has iron in it? It does; seven percent of the daily requirement according to the FDA. You have to eat four pieces of candy to get that, however. The added benefit is that you also take in 170 calories, only 50 of them from fat These calories can be used to propel yourself that last half-mile into camp on iron depleted feet. Your mouth feels so good that you have no energy left to think about what your blisters are saying to you.

On the other hand, snack sized Almond Joys have absolutely no iron whatsoever, nor does it have vitamins A or C, and has no calcium at all. One bar (a serving) has 80 calories, forty of them from fat. The down side is that you have to eat 9 of them to get any satisfaction at all. The up side is that you have to eat 9 of them to get any satisfaction at all.

So what? Well I don't know, except to say that I am reading more than I have in the past. Sometimes I feel informed; sometimes I feel deformed. Most of the time I wish that stuff that really tasted good, actually had some nutritional value. I am discovering that when Trillium's hands have touched what I eat, however, nothing seems to matter. Her company is more important and tastes better and is better for me.

Roots of the Mountain

2008-09-14T18:40:00.000-07:00

I have a close friend with whom I have done a lot of camping and other Scouting activities. He is a geologist by training and disposition, and is about to dive into the academic aspects of the same. For the past eight and a half years I could not be with Wes when he was not pointing out some aspect of the landscape which would certainly produce semi-precious gems, geodes, or other rock-hound wonders. I went with him once to a remote part of central Utah, to Topaz Mountain in fact, where we were to look for raw gems of the same name. I have to say that we found some; I was quite pleased with myself at some of the particularly nice rough stones that I collected. We also found some particularly beautiful large stones which, when cut and polished, are supposed to be quite valuable. In order to get to these quarries, however, one has to go to the middle of nowhere. Topaz Mountain is in the middle of nowhere. We drove through some of the most desolate landscape I have ever seen in order to pop out a few really fine pieces. Even in 2004 dollars, we burned a lot of gas to get there and back. He did not, however, point out the vast amounts of iron filings through which we were driving.

All of this came back to my mind because of what happened to me last Friday. I was invited to go out to Seven-mile Pass to sing for about a hundred Boy Scouts. In order to get to Seven-mile Pass, you have to get to Five-mile Pass, which understandably is about two miles from Seven-mile Pass. In order to get to Five-mile pass you have to go through Lehi, Eagle Mountain, Fairfield, and "almost-Vernon". I say "almost-Vernon" because it was supposed to be there somewhere, but I never saw it myself. At Five-mile Pass there is a north-south road that runs straight as an arrow across an open desert of sagebrush, tumbleweed, and ironwood. At some point, one of the Scout executives had placed a sign pointing me toward a long wide valley running east and west. The road to the camp was winding and in extreme disrepair. I was in the Mustang and therefore made it okay, but had I been in any other kind of car, I undoubtedly would have left parts of my engine pan and several quarts of oil along the way. I arrived, however, without incident.

I arrived fairly early. I think that I was preceded to the camp by only one or two other people. They had a shelter set up, a shade from the sun, and I sat there in anticipation of my performance. Quite a few big trucks passed through the camp in order to drop off their equipment. Young people were running around all over camp trying to get various venues set up, including their own camp sites. It was somewhat like an anthill. The sun began to sink into the west, dinner was served (a potato bar with all of the trimmings, together with home-made root beer, ginger ale, sarsaparilla, and black cherry soda. Not bad.) Everyone seemed to have some difficulty finding the place simply because the campsite was more in the middle of nowhere than Topaz Mountain, which thing I could not suppose to be so. So the schedule got set back more and more. My performance with the Scouts did not take place until well after dark, which thing I had not anticipated. The trick for me was finding my way back to Orem from Seven-mile Pass in the dark. I was surprised at the facility I had in making my way back down down the canyon westward until I found the north-south road back to Five-mile Pass. I arrived home forty-five minutes after I left the campsite.

I have decided that my quick retreat from S-mP was possible because of my inner compass. Some people have an internal clock; they can tell you at any given moment what the exact time is. I have an internal compass, one that will point me, without fail, to due north. This is a side-effect of hemochromatosis. All of the iron in my body aligns itself with the magnetic flux of the earth's core. If I were to put on a pair of roller skates with my arms extended and just let the "force" work upon me, in about 14 seconds my right arm would swing around until it pointed to the magnetic north pole. Needless to say my left arm would be pointing south. Some might quibble about the arm orientation (why not the left arm pointing north?), but I have resolved all issues of this nature by pointing out that I was born in California, raised on the beach, facing westward for most of my life. Hence, all of the iron molecules in my body are lined up as they are because of my childhood experiences.

I enjoyed my little visit to Seven-mile Pass because I was able to get back to my roots. The campsite was loaded with iron, free iron, iron in the rough, as it were. My magnetic disposition was working admirably well, and I attracted an enormous amount of iron filings as I sat in the shade next to the road. When a truck would pass by, I would find myself covered in more iron. The youths and adults, running from one place to another, were able to provide me with more quantities of perfectly aligned iron filings that then gravitated toward me, eventually adding to the growing layer of iron-sheeting which I was accumulating. At the campfire, I experienced more of this interesting wilderness phenomenon. It was clear that the boys had found a large store of ironwood in the canyon and were burning it in the fire pit. No matter where I stood around the campfire, the smoke enveloped me, creating a secondary layer of non-heme iron in addition to the raw materials that I had been collecting all afternoon. When I finally was leaving, all of the iron filings on my uniform and that which covered the Mustang immediately arranged themselves north-south. It was all that I could do to keep the car from climbing the ridge on my right as I was leaving. When I arrived at the north-south road, I simply let go of the steering wheel and stepped on the gas; the car just guided itself straight north until I arrived at Highway 73. By that time, much of the iron dust had blown off of the car and I was able to travel east and then south as I went home, without having to wrestle with the steering wheel any more.

I am not certain how much free-radical iron I ingested or breathed in on my little foray to the desert. I will know that fact when I finally have my next ferritin blood test. I suspect, however, that I will be accused of having eaten another two-pound piece of tri-tip, plus four or five six-dollar burgers. What a life! I did have a little fun out there; I taught all of the boys and men DJ Otzi's the "Burger -dance Song":

The Pizza Hut, the Pizza Hut

Kentucky fried chicken and the Pizza Hut

(sing twice)

McDonald's, McDonald's

Kentucky fried chicken and the Pizza Hut

(sing twice more)

(sing both verses until your brains fall out)

I knew that every one of them would wake up at four in the morning, align themselves with the magnetic poles, and uncontrollably sing that song at the top of their lungs. What a day!

Eon-overloading

2008-09-12T08:12:00.000-07:00

Inasmuch as I regaled cyberspace with my take on The Odyssey, and, inasmuch as not a whole lot is going in Hemospace, I thought that I might reflect upon my next project, Virgil's Aeneid. I have the Harvard Classics series because of Richard Baker, one of our close friends in Simi Valley when we lived there. When he and his wife moved to Idaho, he decided to unload a few books on someone who would take care of them. I had always wanted the Harvard Classics, so I took them in. Nearly twenty years have passed since I put them on my shelves and I am finally getting to them. I have now read six in the series, and more if the text of the rest may be counted as having been read in other editions. The Aeneid is the verse translation made by John Dryden. The first seventy-five pages of the volume, however, is Dryden's explanation of the genre and his take on it, addressed to the "Most Honorable John, Lord Marquis of Normanby, Earl of Mulgrave, etc. and Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter". I am thirteen pages into this diatribe and fear that I will not make it to the poem itself.

The most salient point that Dryden makes in those pages that I have read, is that epic poetry differs from tragedy, in that one is longer than the other. Wherever Normanby and Mulgrave are, it is clear that John was wearing his garter around his neck if he wasn't aware of that distinction before the poet penned those words to him. Be that as it may, I have since tried to imagine whether I am producing an "epic blog", a massive, ponderous ironic monster wending its way to nowhere, or simply recounting a "tragic blog", a little story playing out on "blogspot.com" with its several acts and scenes. Of course, "tragic blog" implies that at the end of the play things go badly for the hero. What I want here is a "comedic blog", one that is in favor of the writer's successful recovery from his affliction.

Those of you who have actually read all of the previous entries will remember that after all of the preliminary fuss, "Doc Holliday" determined that I should have a pint of blood drawn, wait three weeks or so, and then have blood samples taken to see how the phlebotomy technique was affecting my condition. You will recall the debaucheries of the "tri-tip" and the "$6.00 burger" incidents that followed immediately on the heels of that first "blood-letting". Notwithstanding falling off the wagon twice in one week, my ferritin count still dropped by 140 points. Now, at this point we need to decide whether this was the conduct of an epic hero (a warrior shouting down the gods of Olympus, spurring their opposition) or whether this was just an isolated minor scene of Act I, meant solely for comic relief, so that the tragedy of the pancreas running away with the liver at the end of the play would have more substance. Who knows? Nobody; not even John Dryden.

On Monday I returned, by assignment and appointment, to the Fusion Center (you may use any of the following prefixes: "In-", "De-", or "Con-", in order to provide the appropriate tension for this part of the play; all of them work). Trillium was with me, of course, so that I would not have to drive home by myself in a state of euphoria from having had another hole the size of the Holland Tunnel bored into one of my veins. The nurse was not the same as had operated on me a month ago. Apparently, the original girl had not quite recovered from her little encounter with me. Monday's nurse, however, was a little more game. She bought into all of my jokes, laughing with good humor at my witticisms. This, of course, was all dramatic technique, designed to lull me into a state of unconcern, just before inserting a needle into my vein that went from my elbow to my shoulder blade. This technique is known as "deep blood retrieval". As the humors were going our of me, the humor was going out of me. "Would you like something to drink?" she cooed. "Yeth. Waff hab eu goth?" She rattle off a number of drinks and soda. "Barfs. I'll haf da Barfs". Just as I was starting to pass out, she brought me the entire can of Barqs Root Beer together with an ice-filled cup. "Wa?" I garbled, "Sno gookies?" She brought a package of Lorna Doones back a few minutes later. All I could think of at that point was a story by my daughter, Dara, about two lands situated next to each other; the one where it rained milk and the other where Lorna Doones fell like manna from heaven. Living on the border seemed to be the only reasonable thing to do, until the sour milk and the soggy Doones backed up the sewer system. I think that that point, the hero stands up on the milk-rain side, opens up his mouth, and drowns in moo-juice (No, that's Ray Bradbury and an episode from "The Illustrated Man"). This, naturally, represents another dramatic technique known as the "framed story" or the "play within a play".

Speaking of a "play within a play" (this writing technique is known as an oblique sequitur, a way of bringing in another event without producing a separate blog), Trillium and I went to a "musical comedy" last night written by Marvin Payne (yes, the Marvin Payne) and Steven Kapp Perry (ye..., no, there is only one of those, he has to be the the). It was called "Wedlocked". It was "musical" because it had music and it was a "comedy" because it had a happy ending. The actors could sing (nothing off-key) and the singers could act (nothing off-character). The first hour of the play was an exercise in angst, taking the audience where it did not want to go. Trillium had hoped for a light-hearted comedy like the one we had seen with Marvin and his friend in downtown Provo, "Eripmav", I think it was; something like "vampire" spelled backwards. The first hour of last night's performance was more like "The Dark Knight" or "X-Men"; I felt like Magneto was in the room and all of my serum iron was being forcibly converted into ball-bearings and extracted through my pores. The denouement, however, was quite satisfying; two square roots of 3 becoming an integer (thanks Chris for the delightful metaphor). I suppose that this was the effect caused by sustained dramatic tension, followed by catharsis.

Well, epic or drama, that is the question. Is this thing going to go on interminably, the hero suffering and rejoicing in book after book of Pindaric lines; or will there just be five Acts of dubious unity, the audience vainly hoping to somehow get their time and money back? Once you have invested more than three hours in this place, however, you might as well relax and enjoy the ride. Its going to take a while to get home.

Bronzing in an Iron Age

2008-09-10T06:38:00.000-07:00

In my attempt to catch up with the rest of the world, I just finished Homer's "Odyssey". The Harvard Classics edition changes the poetry into paragraph prose which facilitates the reading considerably. The translation was made S.H. Butcher and A. Lang. I assume that "A. Lang" is Andrew Lang whom I have encountered in other venues. The translation was adequate and I learned where the phrase "rosy-fingered dawn" came from; it appeared just about every time the sun comes up in the narrative. Given that the story covers twenty years, the phrase shows up 7300 times. My guess is that if Odysseus got up every morning to check out the "rosy-fingered dawn" that the rosy fingers would have made him as brown as a berry. Unfortunately for him, Penelope his wife was back home in Ithaca unable to raise the cuff on his short-sleeved shirt to see if he were suffering from the effects of iron-overloading. No clip board, no perfunctory check mark, and no "No worries then".

But Odysseus had plenty of worries. He spent seven of the twenty years fighting a battle against Troy in an attempt to recover the famous Helen thereof for her husband. This is all recounted in the Iliad, if you are a reader, or "Troy" if you are a Brad Pitt fan. I do not wish to dwell on the Iliad inasmuch as it has little or nothing to do with my current situation, save that there were a lot of involuntary phlebotomies performed on a daily basis. After the war against Troy, Odysseus and his army set off for home in their "black ships". They have all sorts of adventures which usually resulted in someone, or several someones, being eaten. By the time the twenty years are up, no one but Odysseus is worrying about iron-overloading. All of his friends are in the Underworld lamenting the fact that they are iron under-loaded.

Penelope has been the faithful wife, hoping against hope that Odysseus would soon return home from the wars, but reports are not encouraging. P and O's son, Telemachus, goes out to find more reliable news. The networks were still obsessing about whether Helen looked frumpy or not. The story of Telemachus' travel seems a bit out of place. It does little to advance the story line and everyone he talks to seems as dumb as a brick. Meanwhile, Odysseus is moping about Calypso's island, eating apples, trying to figure out how to get Jack Sparrow back from the end of the world (actually, Jack Sparrow does not figure into the story, but Calypso does send Odysseus on an adventure where the hero does try to bring someone back from the end of something).

Eventually, after 330 pages of really small print, Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca where he finds that for many years the men of his generation, ALL of the men of his generation, have become wooers for the hand of the lovely Penelope. That's what they are called... "wooers". They were petitioning Penelope to choose one of them so that the lucky gent could be the "woo-hoo-er". She was reputedly a handsome woman. Penelope had put them all off for almost a score of years, tending to her knitting and weaving rather than succumb to the entreaties of the gaggle of courtiers. Odysseus is irritated at the conduct of the wooers and summarily dismisses them with a series of flicks from his great bow that no one other than himself can bend. More phlebotomies. some brought about by 14-gauge black-fletched arrows, others by instruments of various sizes, most all of which had a tendency to remove large portions of personal iron from the wooers, who by this time had become "boo-hoo-ers" (sorry, I couldn't resist). P, O, and T apparently live happily every after, having been given a clean bill of health by Athene (a goddess who serves as the "Doc Holliday" component of the story).

So, what is this all about? Why does this story have any resonance with me? It has to do with the thing that really ticked off Telemachus during the twenty years that Odysseus was gone: the eating habits of the wooers. These guys have at least three meals a day, which according to Homer, consisted of a herd of goats, five pigs, three oxen, eight sheep, and a small dog for breakfast. Lunch was about the same except that they added 87 chickens and several koi from the ornamental pond in the patio. For dinner, anything that moved was fair game, including some rather exotic animals from Brazil. The fact that the Ithacans actually survived for more than ten years on this diet is astounding; that Odysseus and Telemachus could kill any of them is stunning; that father and son survived their revenge upon the wooers is incredible.

Imagine some Ithacan with a ferritin level of 14752, suffering from high blood pressure (396/275), being hit by a pointy anything. The effect would be like standing in front of a cannon filled with ball bearings. If you hit the guy's liver, your trusty blade shatters. Smack his pancreas and everyone starts running around, holding their heads screaming "The Bells! The Bells!". The only saving grace in all of this is the gratitude of the townspeople in Ithaca who had been compelled to listen to an endless cacophony of "clinks", "clanks", "clunks", "squeaks", and occasional "pings" for thirteen years (flax seed oil had not as yet been perpetrated upon a credulous public).

Well, there you have it: another non-report on my medical condition; another title that apparently has little to do with the non-report, except that Odysseus lived during the Iron Age and was tan.

The Iron Filing that Broke the Bloggle's Back

2008-09-08T08:04:00.000-07:00

In all of my excitement to share my medicines with my readers, I failed to mention one other tidbit:

Flax Seed Oil: I take two Gel-caps worth of this stuff every day at Trillium's request. They are scary-looking. They are cylindrical, black, and look eversomuch like two dead cockroaches with their legs pulled off. I woke up this morning at 5:30, remembering that I had not included this stuff in my list and tried to remember why I was doing it. I couldn't think of what I had been told. So, in the spirit of entertainment, I began conjuring up the most ridiculous reasons why I should. As it turns out, the most ridiculous of my ideas were true. Flax seed oil is a heart lubricant; it keeps all of the valves operating without excessive "squeaking", "clanking", "clunking", or even the occasional "ping". It softens the tissues of the vascular system. Apparently whenever I move in my sleep, the crunching of my veins wakes Trillium up. She said it was like someone jumping on a very large bag of angel hair pasta. Along with eliminating the breakfast cereal aspect of my cardio-vascular system, flax seed oil also makes the inside of my arteries slick, so that when my chunky, iron-encrusted blood passes by, it does not get hung up, thereby reducing the pressure necessary to shove the little ingots through the tubes.

Now you know all there is to know about what I am going to do in about three minutes. I will pop all of these pills at once with a large slug of "green drink" which is currently under construction even as I type. If I am lucky, Trillum will bring it to me..... BOY AM I LUCKY!!!

Filling Space with Iron Filings

2008-09-07T15:22:00.000-07:00

"Doc Holliday" has me on my final regimen. I am to have a pint of blood taken every month, sometime after which he will extract some more blood to test, after which I will meet with him for another consultation. The practical effect of all of this is that I won't have anything to say on my blog for three or four weeks in a row except to repeat my rather thinly-worn complaint about needles and answering services. So what to do. I could petition my readers for things they would like to know about my condition, but I am convinced that they would rather just read this thing once and then move on less crimson subjects. I have thought of having another blog about other ailments that occur more frequently like torn finger nails, gastritis, stiff joints, and paper cuts, but I am certain that my readership would plummet to 1 (me; I like reading my own stuff). I think, however, that it has pretty much plummeted to 1 anyway since I have not written anything for about a week. So, again, what to do?

I mentioned a while back about how I was cautioned about taking over the counter vitamin C now that I am a confirmed afflictee of hemochromatosis. Vitamin C facilitates the absorption of both heme and non-heme iron. Perhaps it would be useful to talk about things that I do take that apparently are not on the "do not consume" list and why I swallow them down every morning.

Lyprinisil: This is my blood pressure medicine. I did not have high blood pressure until I moved to New Mexico. My pressure was always 120/80 my whole life until them. I think that it went up in conjunction with the expansion of the Institute of Religion at the University of New Mexico. By the time I saw the doctor there, my pressure was 165/135. Why blood was not squirting out my eyes I do not know. My doctor put me on this blood pressure medicine, large quantities thereof, and it short order I seemed to be back to normal. Since that time I have tried to get off of it completely; at one point I was down to 2.5 mg a day and I seemed to be doing fine. Since the suspicion that I had this genetic disorder began to settle in, my blood pressure has been going up. About the time that everything was being evaluated, "Doc" increased my dose to 20 mg daily. I am now at 123/84 most of the time (139/93 just now, but I was thinking about it).

Bee Pollen: I take this for my allergies. It keeps me from having the symptoms and the obligatory sinus infections that inevitably follow. I did not have any allergies until I moved to New Mexico (hmmm... a developing pattern). High pollen count is 50 ppm (parts per million). Above that and there are serious problems in the air. The juniper pollen count in Albuquerque in the spring is generally in excess of 1500 ppm for about six weeks. For the first couple of years I was almost worthless from the middle of March until late April. Trillium taught me about bee pollen and I have been fine ever since.

Vitamin D3: Trillium says that this is the immune vitamin. I always thought that was what vitamin C was for. I am happy to know that I will not be suffering random diseases as a result of knocking vitamin C out of my ancillary diet. I have taken this for about six months or so and I have not had even the whisper of a cold.

Saw palmetto: Men have a condition later in life that causes them to get up during the night more often than they did when they were younger. A year ago, I was getting up every two hours during the night. I had chronic fatigue as a result. I take one pill a day and I now only get up once during the night, usually after six hours of good sleep. The prostate gland can be shrunk by saw palmetto. Do not, however, think that more is better. More means.... no I am not going to tell you what it means. Just don't over-do it; girls don't do it at all.

Chondroitin and glucosamine: These are for putting a little substance back into the joints, for replacement cartilage and such. I take two a day and have not felt any worse for wear. It is probably no more than modern snake oil, but it keeps me from worrying about shrinking to a height less than Becky's and thus my blood pressure is better.

Calcium-Magnesium: I have no idea why I am taking this. Trillium said that if I didn't do it I would become a bitter old man (or was it a brittle old man?). In any event I don't want to be an old man so I take it.

There you have it. A non-hemochromatosis blog entry that is just taking up space. Not very interesting, but so it goes. Just for the record, my sister Judie tells me that her hematologist is interested in my blog. If you are reading this, "Judie-doc", welcome to my world.

Iron Pen on a Tablet of Stone

2008-09-02T12:06:00.000-07:00

Job was a nice guy, according to the book in the Bible bearing his name. For his goodness he was given the opportunity to lose everything that he owned to the Sabeans, fire from heaven, the Chaldeans, and a tornado, in that order. Job managed to stay cheerful in the midst of affliction and for his pains, his cake of trials and tribulations was given a frosting of boils from head to toe. His wife told him to curse God and die; his friends wanted him to confess his obvious sins in lurid detail. Job knew that he was a nice guy and would not curse God or anyone else because of his lot in life. He could not confess his sins in lurid detail to his four friends for two reasons: one, he had committed no sins that would have justified the rather rough treatment he had received; and, two, he didn't know what a "lurid detail" was. After all was said and done, forty-two poetic chapters later, Job had all that he lost restored to him and then some. In the middle of this winsome story, Job declaims "Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a blog (... er ...) book. That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever". He then goes on to explain why he felt as good as he did under the circumstances that he was forced to endure. You may read them for yourself in Job 19:23-27. As it turns out, I feel the same way, even though I am not afflicted in the same draconian manner as Job was. However, I do have a word or two to say about trying to get messages through to the medical industry which I hope could be as effective as iron pens on stone.

Trying to get through to my health provider is a nightmare, one like unto that caused by a pastrami and sour kraut sandwich on a pumpernickel bun. I dial the number 234-8600 (that's the real number, by the way, and I don't care if you call it) and immediately I am confronted with a recording that sounds inviting enough, but soon turns into a stone wall. About the first thing on the agenda is language preference, the instructions given in every possible language that might be spoken by a patient: "If you speak Spanish press '8'; if you speak Korean, press '9'; if you speak Finnish press '39'; if you speak Athabaskan, press '65'; if you speak American Sign Language, press '45893'; if you speak English stay on the line for one hour and forty-five minutes and we will get right to you."

The next thing that happens (not immediately, but eventually), the same recorded voice says, "Now that we are certain that you speak English, if you would like to talk with the Moran Eye Center, press '1'; if you would like to speak to the Pharmacy, press '2'; if you want to speak to your health care provider just stay on the line for one hour and forty-five minutes and we will get right to you." The irony of all of this is that the Moran Eye Center (234-8530) and the Pharmacy (234-8510) have their own phone numbers; in fact they are listed right below the UHCPHC number (234-8600) in the telephone book. Why is my path to the doctor strewn with stumbling blocks like this? Who in their right mind would go through all of the mysteries of the language selection if they could go directly to the Moran Eye Center or the Pharmacy? I think that there is a conspiracy here.

The next hurdle has to do with a variety of selections that I cannot at present remember, even though I just went through the routine less than an hour ago. What I do know is if you push any button other than "3" you will have a longer wait than the traditional one hour and forty-five minutes. The "push 3" option sends you off to the bowels of some answering service which arranges all of the appointments with the doctors and also will deliver messages to the main office in American Sign Language for you. While you are waiting for a human being to answer the phone (or a facsimile thereof) you are assailed by a tinny recording of some masterpiece orchestrated by Attila the Hun and his band of merry men. I have now heard every recording made by AtH and HBoMM six times and I have only tried to get through to my doctor twice. About a half an hour into their rendition of the "I Can't Get No Satisfaction/In Da Gadda Vida" medley, the same voice sweetly interrupts with "If you are bound and determined to speak with semi-sentient being, please stay on the line; if you wish, however, you can leave a message for the next available Mongoloid Idiot at our Call Center by pressing '1'." Never, ever, under any circumstances, take this option. There is no act of futility more intense than this one.

Eventually, someone does pick up the line and says, "Hello, my name is Djhjklfdnsbnethny, how may I help you?" This rather esoteric proper name approach by the Call Center is designed so that no one who answers the phone will ever get into trouble for the way that they insult and demean the patients who call in. I once tried to report Djhjklfdnsbnethny, but the supervisor with whom I was speaking said, "We have no one by that name here. We have a Djmjklfdnsbnethny, but she not the one you are after." (I could have made this last bit a whole lot funnier, but there is no copy-paste function in the compose mode of this blog). After Djhjklfdnsbnethny introduces herself, I say, "I would like to talk to my doctor" "Your name please" "Zaphod Beeblebrox" "Is 'Beeblebrox' spelled with three 'B's or nine." "Three," I reply. "Your date of birth?" "Somewhere in the twilight of pre-history." "Really, sir, we don't have time for that sort of humor; this is a medical facility." I sigh, "16 July 1942" "Is that with one '6' or three, Mwhahahahaha!" "One". "Well, now Zaffy, what can I do for you?" "I would like to talk to my doctor." "What is his name?" "Doc Holliday". "He's not in right now." "How can that be? He just tried to call me ten minutes ago and left a message on my answering machine, asking me to call him right back at this number". "Well, that's all fine and dandy for him, but we have no way to connect you directly with your doctor. We can pass a message along to him if it seems important enough or we can set up a really expensive appointment for you. We prefer the latter because we then get a piece of the action, if you know what I mean". I leave a message laced with mild allusions to mal-practice suits and hang up the phone.

About an hour later, "Doc" calls and says, "Hi, there. I hear that you have been stirring the kettle at the Call Center. Good for you! They never let me call out; I have to use my own cell phone." He then gives me the latest report on my health.

You will remember that when my ferritin level was first checked about a month ago, that I was at 827 and that with the addition of another 173 points I would permanently disturb the core of the planet, hopefully in a catastrophic way. "Doc" cheerfully announced that my ferritin level had dropped to 684, a loss of about 140 points. I had expected no more than 40 points, especially after the half pound of tri-tip steak and the Guacamole Bacon Burger. I confessed all. He said, "Well, don't be extreme about this. If you have a hamburger or a steak once a month that will not be a bad thing. It might mean an extra $200.00 phlebotomy and a couple of $85.00 visits, but whose counting?" After assuring me that everything was coming along as it should, he said, "I'll have my nurse set up another visit for you at the Infusion Center and in a month you come back for another blood test. And when you do, make an appointment to see me a couple of days later so we won't have to use the the Call Center." I told him that I would figure something out.

There used to be a commercial on television, for Big O Tires, I think, where the voice-over guy says, "If you are not satisfied with our tires, just bring them on back to us". The video shows a little old lady with a tire that she then heaves through the plate glass window of the store. I am thinking along the same lines, about making myself known to the University Health Call Center in Jobian terms. I figure that if I incise my message with an iron pen on a large stone and toss that through one of the big windows, they will begin to pay attention to me when I call.

As an addendum: Amber just called from "Doc Holliday's" office to let me know that I now have a standing order at the Infusion Center for a monthly phlebotomy. Without thinking I said, "Does that mean that I am not going to be able to lie down? ('standing order', tee-hee)" There was a momentary silence and then Amber said, "Zaphod, what did I tell you about humor in the workplace?" Then it hit me: "Djhjklfdnsbnethny? Is that you, Djhjklfdnsbnethny" "(click)"