“Holy Chelating Thistle Milk, Batman!”

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

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

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

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

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!!!...

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

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.