National Casting of Aspersions Week

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.