Roots of the Mountain

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

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

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

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

"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

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)"

Iron Pyrites in a World Based on the Gold Standard.

The trouble with having a disease like hemochromatosis is that no one takes you seriously. Who has ever heard of it? "Hemochromawhatzit?" is the usual reaction. How many intense victims of iron over-loading are featured in prime time broadcasts? "Yes, Katie, things are looking grim here at the Beeblebrox household. Big Z just got the news from 'Doc Holliday' that he has the Big H." But when Wolf Blitzer and company discover that the malady isn't Hepatitis D or even hemoroids, the house lights go down and the camera crews all slink off into the night, except for the CNN colonoscopy crew. While it is true that terrible ancillary diseases can be contracted as a result of hemochromatosis, the inevitable response at such a development would be "So, your iron-caked liver and pancreas could have been avoided, eh? Boy what a non-story this is!"

Another aspect of the non-importance of the disease is the nature of its cure or treatment. There is the four to six months of phlebotomies which might have an appeal to the viewing public save for the fact that we have far more exciting blood-lettings on the five o'clock news. If I were to say, "Hey, the 14-gauge needle is no picnic, boys!" The reply would have to be "Poor baby" which, of course, implies that I only have neonatal hemochromatosis. Nothing here but patronizing of the first water.

In addition, it is clear that not much research has been done in discovering a cure for this genetic malady. I have in my salmon folder articles from the "Iron Disorders Institute", the "Iron Overload Diseases Association", "Life Extension" , a bunch of other stuff from "ironoverload.com", Northwestern University, the US Department of Health and Human Services, Adult Health Advisor 2008, "eMedicineHealth.com", plus all of the detritus that I have obtained from "Doc Holliday". Most of this material looks just like my blog except for the humor and the rather dubious taste in music. What is interesting about all of this is that none of the parties in the business have reached a consensus with any of the others, except by plagiarism. Most of the statistical information that I have provided the readers of my blog has come from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and "ironoverload.com" My motive for doing so was that I thought that I actually understood what they were saying. For example: in speaking of liver complications, the USDHHS simply states that iron-overloading will cause cirrhosis of the liver which will seriously effect the ability of the liver to help with digestion and the removal of toxins from the body. That seems to be fairly clear, so clear in fact that I could easily compare it to a failing sewer system. The "Iron Disorders Institute", however, lists the complications thusly

Signs in the symptomatic patient by system:
Liver/Spleen/Gastrointestinal ---
Hepatomegaly
Cutaneous stigmata of chronic liver disease
Splenomegaly
Portal hypertensions
Ascites
Esophageal varices

Now there is no fun in this, even though I understand every third word. So my statistics come from sources who can actually communicate in the English language instead of Pig-Latin and Fraternity Greek. That may be an iffy sort of approach, but I couldn't tell a joke to Socrates to save my life.

The heart of the matter is that there is no money in doing research, finding a cure, or even making the treatment protocol more appealing. Who is going to give a $50,000,000.00 grant to someone to invent a 14-gauge needle that doesn't hurt going in? In a country boasting 250,000,000 souls, only 1.5 million have the gene mutation for hemochromatosis according to the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. How many of them even know that they have the affliction? To the American Medical Association we are iron pyrites, Fool's Gold. We look like we ought to be cash cows, but we aren't. So where can you go to get a little respect for iron pyrite over-load? Maybe Jamaica.